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Heroes of the Nations 

A Series of Biographical Studies presenting the 
lives and work of certain representative histori- 
cal characters, about whom have gathered the 
traditions of the nations to which they belong, 
and who have, in the majority of instances, been 
accepted as types of the several national ideals. 



12°, Illustrated, cloth, each . . $1.50 
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No. 33 and following Nos. . . net $1.35 
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(By mail, $1.75) 



FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME 



Iberoes ot tbe IRations 

EDITED BY 

f). inn. Cacless S>avis, ^.£1. 

FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 



FACTA DUCIS VIVENT OPEROSAQUE 
GLORIA RERUM. OVID, IN LIVIAM, 2S5. 



CONSTANTINE 




CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 

FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRINT ROOM. 



Frontispiece. 



CONSTANTINE 
THE GREAT 

THE REORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE AND 
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH 



JOHN B. FIRTH 

(sometime scholar of queen's college, oxford) 

AUTHOR OF "AUGUSTUS C-BSAR," "a TRANSLATION OF PLINy's LETTERS," ETC. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS ^ ^ 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

St^t ^nitkerbockti ^uss 
1905 



Li!ih :^V a! GO :.c;!£SSj 

FEB 4 1905 

CLhSS /i XAc, NOi 

/0S-//9 

. COPY b( 



Copyright, 1904 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Published, January, 1905 / 



Ube Vtniclierbocfter l^cese, Dew QorK 



TO MY FATHER 



PREFACE 

IN the following chapters, my object has been to 
tell the story of the Life and Times of Constan- 
tine the Great. Whether he deserves the epithet 
my readers will judge for themselves; certainly his 
place in the select list of the immortals is not among 
the highest. But whether he himself was ' ' great' ' or 
not, under his auspices one of the most momentous 
changes in the history of the world was accom- 
plished, and it is the first conversion of a Roman 
Emperor to Christianity, with all that such conver- 
sion entailed, which makes his period so important 
and so well worth studying. 

I have tried to write with impartiality — a virtue 
which one admires the more after a close reading of 
original authorities who, practically without excep- 
tion, were bitter and malevolent partisans. The 
truth, therefore, is not always easily recognised, nor 
has recognition been made the easier by the polemi- 
cal writers of succeeding centuries who have dealt 
with that side of Constantine's career which belongs 
more particularly to ecclesiastical history. In nar- 
rating the course of the Arian Controversy and the 
proceedings of the Council of Nicaea I have been 
content to record facts— as I have seen them— and 



vi Preface 

to explain the causes of quarrel rather than act as 
judge between the disputants. And though in this 
branch of my subject I have consulted all the origi- 
nal authorities who describe the growth of the con- 
troversy, I have not deemed it necessary to read, 
still less to add to, the endless strife of words to 
which the discussion of the theological and meta- 
physical issues involved has given rise. On this 
point I am greatly indebted to, and have made liberal 
use of, the admirable chapters in the late Canon 
Bright 's The Age of the Fathers. 

Other authorities, which have been most useful 
to me, are Boissier's La Fin du Paganisme, AUard's 
La Persecution de Diocletien et le Trioniphe de V Eglise, 
Dnruy' s Histoire Romaine, and Grosvenor's Constan- 
tinople. 

J. B. Firth. 

London, October, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

^THE EMPIRE UNDER DIOCLETIAN 

CHAPTER II. 

THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ABDICATION OF DIOCLETIAN AND THE SUC- 
CESSION OF CONSTANTINE • • • • 39 



PAGE 
I 



12 



CHAPTER IV. 
^ CONSTANTINE AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
CHAPTER V. 
"^^ THE INVASION OF ITALY 

CHAPTER VI. 



56 



73 ^ 



THE VISION OF THE CROSS AND THE EDICT OF 

MILAN ........ 92 



CHAPTER VII. 

'**THE DOWNFALL OF LICINIUS . 

vii 



• 115 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 

LAST DAYS OF PERSECUTION ..... I34 

CHAPTER IX. 
CONSTANTINE AND THE DONATISTS . , . 159 

CHAPTER X. 
THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY tr . , . , 189 

CHAPTER XL 
THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A ■» . . . . . 211 

CHAPTER XII, 
THE MURDERS OF CRISPUS AND FAUSTA . . . 237 

CHAPTER XIII. 
THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE . . . 257 

CHAPTER XIV. 
ARIUS AND ATHANASIUS ..... 285 

CHAPTER XV. 
CONSTANTINE's DEATH AND CHARACTER . . 301 

CHAPTER XVI. 
THE EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY . . . 330 

INDEX 357 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . . Frontispiece 

From the British Museum Print Room. 

BUST OF DIOCLETIAN ...... 22 

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT , . . . . 40 

From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 

THE GOLDEN GATE OF DIOCLETIAn's PALACE AT 

SALONA (SPALATO) ..... 60 

BUST OF MAXIMIAN AT ROME .... 62 

Photograph by Alinari. 

FRAGMENT OF 4TH CENTURY EGYPTIAN POTTERY 

BOWL 70 

Showing an early portrait of Christ, with busts of 
the Emperor Constantine and the Empress 
Fausta. From the British Museum. 

THE BATTLE OF THE MILVIAN BRIDGE, BY RAPHAEL 86 
In the Vatican. Photograph by Alinari. 

THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME . . . 90 ' 

Photograph by Alinari. 

CONSTANTINE'S VISION OF THE CROSS, BY RAPHAEL 94 
In the Vatican. Photograph by Alinari, 



Illustrations 



PAGE 



THE WESTERN SIDE OF A PEDESTAL, SHOWING THE 

HOMAGE OF THE VANQUISHED GOTHS . . I26 

From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 

THE AMPHITHEATRE AT ARLES .... 168 
Exterior view. Present day. 



172 



238 



THE AMPHITHEATRE AT ARLES AS IT APPEARED IN 
1686 

From an old print. 

STATUE OF CONSTANTINE FROM THE PORCH OF 
SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERAN, AT ROME . 

GATE OF ST. ANDREW AT AUTUN 

" CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND HIS MOTHER, ST 
HELENA, HOLY, EQUAL TO THE APOSTLES " 

From a picture discovered 1845, in an old church 
of Mesembria. From Grosvenor's Constanti- 
nople, 

THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE .... 248 
From the painting by Raphael in the Vatican. 
Photograph by Alinari. 

ST. Helena's vision of the cross . . . 250 

By Paul Veronese. National Gallery, London. 

chart of the eastern section of mediaeval 

constantinople ...... 258 

From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 

BAPTISTERY OF SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERAN, ROME 262 
Photograph by Alinari. 

ST. HELENA AND THE CROSS .... 268 

By Cranach. Lichtenstein Gallery, Vienna. 



Illustrations 



XI 



COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . 

From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 
THE THREE EXISTING MONUMENTS OF THE HIPPO- 
DROME ....•••• 
From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 

PLAN OF THE HIPPODROME 

From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 

THE SERPENT OF DELPHI ..... 
From Grosvenor's Cottstantinople. 

ST. ATHANASIUS ...•••• 
From the British Museum Print Room. 

BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME . 

From Rome of To-Day and Yesterday, by John 
Dennie. 

THE SUPPOSED SARCOPHAGI OF CONSTANTINE THE 
GREAT AND THEODOSIUS THE GREAT . 
From Grosvenor's Constantinople. 



PAGE 

270 



276 
278 
280 



302 



314 



LIST OF COINS 

COPPER DENARIUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, 
SHOWING THE LABARUM 



DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II,, 

LABARUM 
DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF DIOCLETIAN 
SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIAN . 
AUREUS OF CARAUSIUS . 
AUREUS OF ALLECTUS . 
SOLIDUS OF HELENA 



WITH 



THE 



324 

324 
324 
324 
332 
332 
332 



Xll 



Illustrations 



PAGB 

SOLIDUS OF GALERIUS . . . . . . 332 

SOLIDUS OF SEVERUS II. 332 

SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIN DAZA ..... 34O 

SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS I. 340 

SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS II. .... . 340 

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . 340 

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . 348 ^ 

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF FAUSTA .... 348 

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CRISPUS .... 348 

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. AS C^SAR . 348 




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Constantine 



CHAPTER I 

THE EMPIRE UNDER DIOCLETIAN 

THE catastrophe of the fall of Rome, with all 
that its fall signified to the fifth century, came 
very near to accomplishment in the third. There 
was a long period when it seemed as though nothing 
could save the Empire. Her prestige sank to the 
vanishing point. Her armies had forgotten what it 
was to win a victory over a foreign enemy. Her 
Emperors were worthless and incapable. On every 
side the frontiers were being pierced and the bar- 
riers were giving way. 

The Franks swept over Gaul and laid it waste. 
They penetrated into Spain ; besieged Toledo ; and, 
seizing the galleys which they found in the Span- 
ish ports, boldly crossed into Mauretanian Africa. 
Other confederations of free barbarians from south- 
ern Germany had burst through the wall of Hadrian 
which protected the Tithe Lands {Decumates agri\ 
and had followed the ancient route of invasion over 



2 Constantine 

the Alps. Pannonia had been ravaged by the Sar- 
matse and the Quadi. In successive invasions the 
Goths had overrun Dacia ; had poured round the 
Black Sea or crossed it on shipboard ; had sacked 
Trebizond and Chalcedon, and, after traversing Bi- 
thynia, had reached the coast at Ephesus. Others 
had advanced into Greece and Macedonia and chal- 
lenged the Roman navies for the possession of Crete. 

Not only was Armenia lost, but the Parthians had 
passed the Euphrates, vanquished and taken pris- 
oner the Emperor Valerian, and surprised the city of 
Antioch while the inhabitants were idly gathered in 
the theatre. Valerian, chained and robed in purple, 
was kept alive to act as Sapor's footstool ; when he 
died his skin was tanned and stuffed with straw and 
set to grace a Parthian temple. Egypt was in the 
hands of a rebel who had cut off the grain supply. 
And as if such misfortunes were not enough, there 
was a succession of terrifying and destructive earth- 
quakes, which wrought their worst havoc in Asia, 
though they were felt in Rome and Egypt. These 
too were followed by a pestilence which raged for 
fifteen years and, according to Eutropius, claimed, 
when at its height, as many as five thousand victims 
in a single day. 

It looked, indeed, as though the Roman Empire 
were past praying for and its destruction certain.* 
The armies were in wide-spread revolt. Rebel usurp- 
ers succeeded one another so fast that the period 
came to be known as that of the Thirty Tyrants, 

* Jam desperatis rebus et delete pcene hnperio Homano (Eutropius, 
iv., c. 9). 



The Empire under Diocletian 3 

many of whom were elected, worshipped, and mur- 
dered by their soldiers within the space of a few weeks 
or months, "You little know, my friends," said Sa- % 
turninus, one of the more candid of these phantom 
monarchs, when his troops a few years later insisted 
that he should pit himself against Aurehan, "you 
little know what a poor thing it is to be an Emperor. 
Swords hang over our necks ; on every side is the 
menace of spear and dart. We go in fear of our 
guards, in terror of our household troops. We can- 
not eat what we like, fight when we would, or take 
up arms for our pleasure. Moreover, whatever an 
Emperor's age, it is never what it should be. Is he 
a grey beard ? Then he is past his prime. Is he 
young? He has the mad recklessness of youth. 
You insist on making me Emperor ; you are drag- 
ging me to inevitable death. But I have at least 
this consolation in dying, that I shall not be able 
to die alone." * In that celebrated speech, vibrat- 
ing with bitter irony, we have the middle of the 
third century in epitome. 

But then the usual miracle of good fortune inter- 
vened to save Rome from herself. The Empire 
fell into the strong hands of Claudius, who in two \ 
years smote the Goths by land and sea, and of 
Aurelian, who recovered Britain and Gaul, restored t^ 
the northern frontiers, and threw to the ground the 
kingdom over which Zenobia ruled from Palmyra. 
The Empire was thus restored once more by the 
genius of two Pannonian peasants, who had found 

* Nescitis, amici, quid malt sit imperare (Vopiscus, Saturninus, 
c, lo). 



4 Constantine 

in the army a career open to talent. The murder 
of Aurelian, in 275, was followed by an interreg- 
num of seven months, during which the army 
seemed to repent of having slain its general and 
paid to the Senate a deference which effectually 
turned the head — never strong — of that assembly. 
Vopiscus quotes a letter written by one senator to 
another at this period, begging him to return to 
Rome and tear himself away from the amusements 
of Baiae and Puteoli. " The Senate," he says,* " has 
returned to its ancient status. It is we who make 
Emperors ; it is our order which has the distribu- 
tion of offices. Come back to the city and the 
Senate House. Rome is flourishing ; the whole 
State is flourishing. We give Emperors ; we make 
Princes ; and we who have begun to create, can 
also restrain." The pleasant delusion was soon dis- 
pelled. The legions speedily re-assumed the role of 
king-makers. Tacitus, the senatorial nominee, ruled 
only for a year, and another series of soldier Em- 
perors succeeded. Probus, in six years of inces- 
sant fighting, repeated the triumphs of Aurelian, 
and carried his successful arms east, west, and north. 
Carus, despite his sixty years, crossed the Tigris 
and made good — at any rate in part — his threat 
to render Persia as naked of trees as his own bald 
head was bare of hairs. But Carus's reign was 
brief, and at his death the Empire was divided 
between his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. 
The former was a voluptuary; the latter, a youth 
of retiring and scholarly disposition, quite unfitted 

* Vopiscus, Florianus, c. 6, 



The Empire under Diocletian 5 

for a soldier's life, was soon slain by his Praetorian 
praefect, Arrius Aper. But the choice of the army 
fell upon Diocletian^ and he, after stabbing to the 
heart the man who had cleared his way to the throne, 
gathered up into his strong hands the reins of power 
in the autumn of 284. He met in battle the army 
of Carinus at Margus, in Moesia, during the spring 
of 285. Carinus was slain by his of^cers and Dio- 
cletian reigned alone. 

But he soon found that he needed a colleague to 
halve with him the dangers and the responsibilities of 
empire. He, therefore, raised his lieutenant, Max- 
imian, to the purple, with the title of Caesar, and a 
twelvemonth later gave him the full name and 
honours of Augustus. There were thus two armies, 
two sets of court ofificials, and two palaces, but the 
edicts ran in the joint name of both Augusti. Then, 
when still further division seemed advisable, the 
principle of imperial partnership was extended, and 
it was decided that each Augustus should have a 
Caesar attached to him. Galerius was promoted to 
be the Caesar of Diocletian ; Constantius to be the 
Caesar of Maximian. Each married the daughter of 
his patron, and looked forward to becoming Augus- 
tus as soon as his superior should die. The plan 
was by no means perfect, but there was much to be 
said in its favour. An Emperor like Diocletian, 
the nominee of the eastern army alone and the son 
of a Dalmatian slave, had few, if any, claims upon 
the natural loyalty of his subjects. Himself a suc- 
cessful adventurer, he knew that other adventurers 
would rise to challenge his position, if they could 



6 Constantine 

find an army to back them. By entrusting Max- 
imian with the sovereignty of the West, he forestalled 
Maximian's almost certain rivalry, and the four 
great frontiers each required the presence of a power- 
ful army and an able commander-in-chief. By hav- 
ing three colleagues, each of whom might hope in 
time to become the senior Augustus, Diocletian 
secured himself, so far as security was possible, 
against military rebellion. 

Unquestionably, too, this decentralisation tended 
towards general efificiency. It was more than one 
man's task, whatever his capacity, to hold together 
the Empire as Diocletian found it. Gaul was ablaze 
from end to end with a peasants' war. Carausius 
ruled for eight years in Britain, which he tempor- 
arily detached from the Empire, and, secure in his 
naval strength, forced Diocletian and Maximian, 
much to their disgust, to recognise him as a brother 
Augustus. This archpirate, as they called him, was 
crushed at last, but whenever Constantius crossed 
into Britain it was necessary for Maximian to move 
up to the vacant frontier of the Rhine and mount 
guard in his place. We hear, too, of Maximian fight- 
ing the Moors in Mauretania. War was thus inces- 
sant in the West. In the East, Diocletian recovered 
Armenia for Roman influence in 287 by placing his 
nominee, Tiridates, on the throne. This was done 
without a breach with Parthia, but in 296 Tiridates 
was expelled and war ensued. Diocletian summoned 
Galerius from the Danube and entrusted him with 
the command. But Galerius committed the same 
blunder which Crassus had made three centuries and 



The Empire under Diocletian 7 

a half before. He led his troops into the wastes of 
the Mesopotamian desert and suffered the inevitable 
disaster. When he returned with the survivors of 
his army to Antioch, Diocletian, it is said, rode forth 
to meet him; received him with cold displeasure; 
and, instead of taking him up into his chariot, com- 
pelled him to march alongside on foot, in spite of 
his purple robe. However, in the following year, 
297, Galerius faced the Parthian with a new army, 
took the longer but less hazardous route through 
Armenia, and utterly overwhelmed the enemy in a 
night attack. The victory was so complete that 
Narses sued for peace, paying for the boon no less 
a price than the whole of Mesopotamia and five pro- 
vinces in the valley of the Tigris, and renouncing 
all claim to the sovereignty of Armenia. 

This was the greatest victory which Rome had won 
in the East since the campaigns of Trajan and 
Vespasian. It was followed by fifty years of pro- 
found peace ; and the ancient feud between Rome 
and Parthia was not renewed until the closing 
days of the reign of Constantine. Lactantius, of 
whose credibility as a historian we shall speak 
later on, sneers at the victory of Galerius, which 
he says was " easily won " * over an enemy encum- 
bered by baggage, and he represents him as being 
so elated with his success that when Diocletian 
addressed him in a letter of congratulation by the 
name of Caesar, he exclaimed, f with glowing eyes 
and a voice of thunder, " How long shall I be 

* De Mart. Per sec, eg: Non difficiliter oppressit. 

\ Truci vultu ac voce terribili, Quousque tandem Ccesar ? 



8 Constantine 

merely Caesar?" But there is no word of cor- 
roboration from any other source. On the contrary, 
we can see that Diocletian, whose forte was di- 
plomacy rather than generalship, was on the best 
of terms with his son-in-law, Galerius, who regarded 
him not with contempt, but with the most pro- 
found respect. Diocletian and Galerius, for their 
lifetime at any rate, had settled the Eastern ques- 
tion on a footing entirely satisfactory and honour- 
able to Rome. A long line of fortresses was estab- 
ished on the new frontier, within which there was 
perfect security for trade and commerce, and the re- 
sult was a rapid recovery from the havoc caused by 
the Gothic and Parthian irruptions. 

Though Diocletian had divided the supreme 
power, he was still the moving and controlling 
spirit, by whose nod all things were governed.* He 
had chosen for his own special domain Asia, Syria, 
and Egypt, fixing his capital at Nicomedia, which he 
had filled with stately palaces, temples, and public 
buildings, for he indulged the dream of making his 
city the rival of Rome. Galerius ruled the Danubian 
provinces with Greece and Illyricum from his capital 
at Sirmium. Maximian, the Augustus of the West, 
ruled over Italy, Africa, and Spain from Milan ; 
Constantius watched over Gaul and Britain, with 
headquarters at Treves and at York. But every- 
where the writ of Diocletian ran. He took the 
majestic name of Jovius, while Maximian styled 
himself Herculius ; and it stands as a marvellous 
tribute to his commanding influence that we hear 



* Cujus tiutu omnia gubernabantur . 



The Empire under Diocletian 9 

of no friction between the four masters of the 
world. 

Diocletian profoundly modified the character of 
the Roman Principate. He orientalised it, adopting 
frankly and openly the symbols and paraphernalia 
of royalty which had been so repugnant to the 
Roman temper. Hitherto the Roman Emperors 
had been, first and foremost, Imperators, heads of 
the army, soldiers in the purple. Diocletian became 
a King, clad in sumptuous robes, stiff with embroid- 
ery and jewels. Instead of approaching with the 
old military salute, those who came into his presence 
bent the knee and prostrated themselves in adora- 
tion. The monarch surrounded himself, not with 
military prsefects, but with chamberlains and court 
officials, the hierarchy of the palace, not of the camp. 
We cannot wholly impute this change to vanity 
or to that littleness of mind which is pleased with 
pomp and elaborate ceremonial. Diocletian was 
too great a man to be swayed by paltry motives. 
It was rather that his subjects had abdicated their 
old claim to be called a free and sovereign people, 
and were ready to be slaves. The whole senatorial 
order had been debarred by Gallienus from enter- 
ing the army, and had acquiesced without apparent 
protest in an edict which closed to its members 
the profession of arms. Diocletian thought that 
his throne would be safer by removing it from the 
ken of the outside world, by screening it from vul- 
gar approach, by deepening the mystery and im- 
pressiveness attaching to palaces, by elaborating the 
court ceremonial, and exalting even the simplest of 



lo Constantine 

domestic services into the dignity of a liturgy. It 
may be that these changes intensified the serviHty 
of the subject, and sapped still further the man- 
hood and self-respect of the race. Let it not be 
forgotten, however, that the ceremonial of the mod- 
ern courts of Europe may be traced directly back 
to the changes introduced by Diocletian, and also 
that the ceremonial, which the older school of 
Romans would have thought degrading and effem- 
inate, was, perhaps, calculated to impress by its 
stateliness, beauty, and dignity the barbarous na- 
tions which were supplying the Roman armies with 
troops. 

We will reserve to a later chapter some account 
of the remodelled administration, which Constan- 
tine for the most part accepted without demur. 
Here we may briefly mention the decentralisation 
which Diocletian carried out in the provinces. 
Lactantius * says that " he carved the provinces up 
into little fragments that he might fill the earth 
with terror," and suggests that he multiplied ofifi- 
cials in order to wring more money out of his 
subjects. That is an enemy's perversion of a wise 
statesman's plan for securing efficiency by lessening 
the administrative areas, and bringing them within 
working limits. Diocletian split up the Empire into 
twelve great dioceses. Each diocese again was sub- 
divided into provinces. There were fifty-seven of 
these when he came to the throne ; when he quitted 
it there were ninety-six. The system had grave 

* Et, ut otnnia terrore complerentur, provincicB quoque in frusta 
conciscB {De Mart. Per sec, c. 7). 



The Empire under Diocletian 1 1 

faults, for the principles on which the finances of the 
Empire rested were thoroughly mischievous and un- 
sound. But the reign of Diocletian was one of rapid 
recuperation and great prosperity, such as the Ro- 
man world had not enjoyed since the days of the 
Antonines, 




CHAPTER II 

THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH 

UNFORTUNATELY for the fame of Diocletian 
there is one indelible blot upon the record of 
his reign. He attached his name to the edicts 
whereby was let loose upon the Christian Church 
the last and — in certain provinces — the fiercest of 
the persecutions. Inasmuch as the affairs of the 
Christian Church will demand so large a share of our 
attention in dealing with the religious policy of Con- 
stantine, it will be well here to describe, as briefly as 
possible, its condition in the reign of Diocletian. 
It has been computed that towards the end of the 
third century the population of the Roman Empire 
numbered about a hundred millions. What propor- 
tion were Christians ? No one can say with certainty, 
but they were far more numerous in the East than 
in the West, among the Greek-speaking peoples 
of Asia than among the Latin-speaking peoples of 
Europe. Perhaps if we reckon them at a twelfth of 
the whole we shall rather underestimate than over- 
estimate their number, while in certain portions pf 
Asia and Syria they were probably at least one in 
five. Christianity had spread with amazing rapidity 

12 



The Persecution of the Church 13 

since the days of Domitian. There had been spas- 
modic outbreaks of fierce persecution under Decius, 
— " that execrable beast," as Lactantius calls him, — 
under Valerian, and under Aurelian. But Aurelian's 
reign was short and he had been too busy fighting 
to spare much time for religious persecution. The 
tempest quickly blew over. For fully half a cent- 
ury, with brief interludes of terror, the Church had 
been gathering strength and boldness. 

The policy of the State towards it was one of in- 
difference. Gallienus, indeed, the worthless son of 
Valerian, had issued edicts of toleration, which 
might be considered cancelled by the later edicts of 
Aurelian or might not. If the State wished to be 
savage, it could invoke the one set ; if to be mild, it 
could invoke the other. There was, therefore, no 
absolute security for the Church, but the general 
feeling was one of confidence. The army contained 
a large number of Christians, of all ranks and condi- 
tions, ofiEicers, centurions, and private soldiers. Many 
of the officials of the civil service were Christians. 
The court and the palace were full of them. Dio- 
cletian's wife, Prisca, was a Christian ; so was Valeria, 
his daughter. So, too, were many of his chamber- 
lains, secretaries, and eunuchs. If Christianity had 
been a proscribed religion, if the Christians had an- 
ticipated another storm, is it conceivable that they 
would have dared to erect at Nicomedia, within full 
view of the palace windows, a large church situated 
upon an eminence in the centre of the city, and evi- 
dently one of its most conspicuous structures ? No, 
Christianity in the East felt tolerably safe and was 



14 Constantine 

advancing from strength to strength, conscious of its 
increasing powers and of the benevolent neutrahty 
of Diocletian. Christians who took office were re- 
lieved from the necessity of offering incense or pre- 
siding at the games. The State looked the other 
way ; the Church was inclined to let them off with 
the infliction of some nominal penance. Nor was 
there much difficulty about service in the army. 
Probably few enlisted in the legions after they had 
become Christians ; against this the Church set her 
face. But she permitted the converted soldier to re- 
main true to his military oath, for she did not wish 
to become embroiled with the State. In a word, 
there was deep religious peace, at any rate in Dio- 
cletian's special sphere of influence, Asia, Egypt, 
and Syria. 

It is to be remembered, however, that there were 
four rulers, men of very different characters and each, 
therefore, certain to regard Christianity from a dif- 
ferent standpoint. Thus there might be religious 
peace in Asia and persecution in the West, as, in- 
deed, there was — partial and spasmodic, but still 
persecution. Maximian was cruel and ambitious, an 
able soldier of the hard Roman type, no respecter of 
persons, and careless of human life. Very few mod- 
ern historians have accepted the story of the massacre 
of the Theban Legion at Agauna, near Lake Leman, 
for refusal to offer sacrifice and take the oath to the 
Emperor. According to the legend, the legion was 
twice decimated and then cut to pieces. But it is 
impossible to believe that there could have been a 
legion or even a company of troops from Thebes in 



The Persecution of the Church 15 

Egypt, wholly composed of Christians, and, even 
supposing the facts to have been as stated, their 
refusal to march in obedience to the Emperor's 
orders and rejoin the main army at a moment when 
an active campaign was in progress, simply invited 
the stroke of doom. Maximian was not the man to 
tolerate mutiny in the face of the enemy. 

But still there were many Christian victims of 
Maximian wherever he took up his quarters — at 
Rome, Aquileia, Marseilles — mostly soldiers whose 
refusal to sacrifice brought down upon them the 
arm of the law. Maximian is described in the 
" Passion of St. Victor" as " a great dragon," but 
the story, even as told by the hagiologist, scarcely 
justifies the epithet. Just as the military praefects, 
before whom Victor was first taken, begged him to 
reconsider his position, so Maximian, after ordering 
a priest to bring an altar of Jupiter, turned to Vic- 
tor and said * : " Just offer a few grains of incense ; 
placate Jupiter and be our friend." Victor's answer 
was to dash the altar to the ground from the hands 
of the priest and place his foot triumphantly upon 
it. We may admire the fortitude of the martyr, 
but the martyrdom was self-inflicted, and the anger 
of the Emperor not wholly unwarranted. " Be our 
friend," he had said, and his overtures were spurned 
with contempt, >v .^*^ ■oAxvuy \g^^vu.J^ . 

We may suspect, indeed, that this partial persecu- 
tion was due rather to the insistence of the martyrs 
themselves than to deliberate policy on the part of 
Maximian. When enthusiastic Christians thrust 



* Pone thura: placa yovem et nosier amicus esto. 



i6 Constantine 

their Christianity upon the official notice of the au- 
thorities, insulted the Emperor or the gods, and re- 
fused to take the oath or sacrifice on ceremonial 
occasions, then martyrdom was the result, and little 
notice was taken, for life was cheap. Diocletian, as we 
have seen, rather patronised than persecuted Christ- 
ianity. Maximian's inclinations towards cruelty 
were kept in check by the known wishes of his senior 
colleague. Constantius, the Caesar of Gaul, was one 
of those refined characters, tolerant and sympathetic 
by nature, to whom the idea of persecution for the 
sake of religion was intensely repugnant ; and Gal- 
erius, the Caesar of Pannonia, the most fanatical 
pagan of the group, was not likely, at any rate dur- 
ing the first few years after his elevation, to run 
counter to the wishes of his patron. 

What was it, then, that wrought the fatal change 
in the mind of Diocletian and turned him from 
benevolent neutrality to fierce antagonism ? Lac- 
tantius attributes it solely to the baleful influence 
of Galerius, whom he paints in the very blackest 
colours. He was a wild beast, a savage barbarian 
of alien blood, tall in stature, a mountain of flesh, 
abnormally bloated, terrifying to look at, and with 
a voice that made men shiver.* Behind this mon- 
ster stood his mother, a barbarian woman from be- 
yond the Danube, priestess of some wild deity of 
the mountains, imbued with a fanatical hatred of 
the Christians, which she was for ever instilling into 
her son. When we have stripped away the obvious 
exaggeration of this onslaught we may still accept 

* De Mart. Per sec, c. 9. 



The Persecution of the Church 1 7 

the main statement and admit that Galerius was 
the most active and unsparing enemy of the Christ- 
ians in the Imperial circle. This rough soldier, 
trained in the school of two such martinets as Au- 
relian and Probus, who enforced military discipline 
by the most pitiless methods, would not stay to 
reason with a soldier's religious prejudices. Un- 
hesitating obedience or death — that was the only 
choice he gave to those who served under him, and 
when, after his great victory over the Parthians, 
his position and prestige in the East were beyond 
challenge, we find Christian martyrdoms in the track 
of his armies, in the Anti-Taurus, in Coele-Syria, in 
Samosata. 

Galerius began to purge his army of Christians. 
Unless they would sacrifice, officers were to lose 
their rank and private soldiers to be dismissed ig- 
nominiously without the privileges of long service. 
Several were put to death in Moesia, where a cer- 
tain Maximus was Governor. Among them was a 
veteran named Julius, who had served in the legion 
for twenty-six years, and fought in seven campaigns, 
without a single black mark having been entered 
against his name for any military offence. Maxi- 
mus did his best to get him off. "Julius," he said, 
" I see that you are a man of sense and wisdom. 
Suffer yourself to be persuaded and sacrifice to the 
gods." " I will not," was the reply, " do what you 
ask. I will not incur by an act of sin eternal punish- 
ment." " But," said the Governor, " I take the sin 
upon myself. I will use compulsion so that you may 
not seem to act voluntarily. Then you will be able 



i8 Constantine 

to return in peace to your house. You will receive 
the bounty of ten denarii and no one will molest 
you." Evidently, Maximus was heartily sorry that 
such a fine old soldier should take up a posi- 
tion which seemed to him so grotesquely indefen- 
sible. But what was Julius's reply? "Neither this 
Devil's money nor your specious words shall cause 
me to lose eternal God. I cannot deny Him. Con- 
demn me as a Christian." After the interrogation 
had gone on for some time, Maximus said : " I pity 
you, and I beg you to sacrifice, so that you may 
live with us." " To live with you would be death 
for me," rejoined Julius, "but if I die, I shall live." 
" Listen to me and sacrifice ; if not, I shall have to 
keep my word and order you to death." " I have 
often prayed that I might merit such an end." 
" Then you have chosen to die ? " "I have chosen a 
temporary death, but an eternal life." Maximus 
then passed sentence, and the law took its course. 

On another occasion the Governor said to two 
Christians, named Nicander and Marcian, who had 
proved themselves equally resolute, " It is not I 
whom you resist ; it is not I who persecute you. 
My hands are unstained by your blood. If you 
know that you will fare well on your journey, I con- 
gratulate you.* Let your desire be accomplished." 
" Peace be with you, merciful judge," cried both the 
martyrs as the sentence was pronounced. 

The movement seems gradually to have spread 
from the provinces of Galerius to those of Max- 
imian. At Tangiers, Marcellus, a centurion of the 

* Si aufem scitis vos bene ituros, gratulor vobis. 



The Persecution of the Church 19 

Legion of Trajan, threw down his centurion's staff 
and belt and refused to serve any longer. He did 
so in the face of the whole army assembled to sac- 
rifice in honour of Maximian's birthday. A similar 
scene took place in Spain at Calahorra, near Tar- 
raco, where two soldiers cast off their arms exclaim- 
ing, '* We are called to serve in the shining company 
of angels. There Christ commands His cohorts, 
clothed in white, and from his lofty throne con- 
demns your infamous gods, and you, who are the 
creatures of these gods, or, we should say, these 
ridiculous monsters." Death followed as a matter 
of course. Looking at the evidence with absolute 
impartiality, one begins to suspect that the process 
of clearing the Christians out of the army was due 
quite as much to the fanaticism of certain Christian 
soldiers eager for martyrdom, as to any lust for blood 
on the part even of Galerius and Maximian. 

But what we have to account for is the rise of a 
fierce anti-Christian spirit which induced Diocletian 
— for even Lactantius admits that he was not easily 
persuaded — to take active measures against the 
Christians. It is certainly noteworthy that about 
this time the only school of philosophy which was 
alive, active, and at all original, was definitely anti- 
Christian. We refer, of course, to the Neo-Platon- 
ists of Alexandria. Their principal exponent was 
the philosopher Porphyry, who carried on a violent 
anti-Christian propaganda, though he seems to have 
borrowed from Christianity, and more especially 
from the rigorously ascetic form which Christianity 
had assumed in Egypt, many of his leading tenets. 



20 Constantine 

The morality which Porphyry inculcated was ele- 
vated and pure ; his religion was mystical to such a 
degree that none but an expert philosopher could 
follow him into the refinements of his abstractions ; 
but he had for the Christian Church a " theological 
hatred " of extraordinary bitterness. The treatise 
— in fifteen books — in which he assailed the Div- 
inity of Christ apparently set a fashion in anti- 
Christian literature. We hear, for example, of 
another unnamed philosopher who " vomited three 
books against the Christian religion," and the vio- 
lence with which Lactantius denounces him as " an 
accomplished hypocrite " makes one suspect that 
his work had a considerable success. Still better 
known was Hierocles, Governor at one time of 
Palmyra, and then transferred to the royal province 
of Bithynia, who wrote a book to which he gave 
the name of T/ie Friend of Truth, and addressed 
it, " To the Christians." Its interest lies chiefly in 
the fact that its author compares with the miracles 
wrought by Christ those attributed to Apollonius 
of Tyana, and denies divinity to both. Lactantius 
tells us that this Hierocles was " author and coun- 
sellor of the persecution,"* and we may judge, 
therefore, that there existed among the pagans a 
powerful party bitterly opposed to Christianity, 
carrying on a vigorous campaign against it, and 
urging upon the Emperors the advisability of a 
sharp repressive policy. 

They would have no difificulty in making out a 
case against the Christians which on the face of it 

'^ De Mort. Per sec, c. i6. 



The Persecution of the Church 21 

seemed plausible and overwhelming. They would 
point to the fanatical spirit manifested, as we have 
seen, by a large number of Christian soldiers in the 
army, which led them to throw down their arms, 
blaspheme the gods, and deny the Emperors. They 
would point to the anti-social movement, which was 
especially marked in Egypt, where the example of 
St. Antony was drawing crowds of men and women 
away into the desert to live out their lives, either in 
solitary cells as hermits, or as members of religious 
communities equally ascetic, and almost equally soli- 
tary. They would point to the aloofness even of the 
ordinary Christian in city or in town from its common 
life, and to his avoidance of office and public duties. 
They would point to the extraordinary closeness of 
the ties which bound Christians together, to their 
elaborate organisation, to the implicit and ready 
obedience they paid to their bishops, and would ask 
whether so powerful a secret society, with ramifica- 
tions everywhere throughout the Empire, was not 
inevitably a menace to the established authorities, 
The Christians were peaceable enough. To accuse 
them of plotting rebellion was hardly possible, 
though the most outrageous calumnies against them 
and their rites were sedulously fostered in order to 
inflame the minds of the rabble, just as they were 
against the Jews in the Middle Ages, and are, even at 
the present day, in certain parts of the Continent of 
Europe. But, at bottom, the real strength of the 
case against the Christians lay in the fact that the more 
enlightened pagans saw that Christianity was the 
solvent which was bound to loosen all that held 



2 2 Constantine 

pagan society together. They instinctively felt 
what was coming, and were sensible of approaching 
doom. Christianity was the enemy, the proclaimed 
enemy, of their religion, of their point of view of this 
life as well as of the next, of their customs, of their 
pleasures, of their arts. Paganism was fighting for 
existence. What wonder that it snatched at any 
weapon wherewith to strike ? 

The personal attitude of Diocletian towards re- 
ligion in general is best seen in the edict which he 
issued against the Manichaeans. The date is some- 
what uncertain, but it undoubtedly preceded the 
anti-Christian edicts. Manichaeanism took its rise 
in Persia, its principal characteristic being the prac- 
tice of thaumaturgy, and it spread fast throughout 
the East. Diocletian ordered the chiefs of the sect 
to be burned to death ; their followers were to have 
their goods confiscated and to suffer capital punish- 
ment unless they recanted ; while persons of rank 
who had disgraced themselves by joining such a 
shameful and infamous set of men were to lose their 
patrimony and be sent to the mines. These were 
savage enactments, and it is important to see how 
the Emperor justified them. Fortunately his lan- 
guage is most explicit. ** The gods," he says, " have 
determined what is just and true; the wisest of 
mankind, by counsel and by deed, have proved and 
firmly established their principles. It is not, there- 
fore, lawful to oppose their divine and human wis- 
dom, or to pretend that a new religion can correct 
the old one. To wish to change the institutions of 
our ancestors is the greatest of crimes." Nothing 





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BUST OF DIOCLETIAN. 



The Persecution of the Church 23 

could be clearer. It is the old official defence of the 
State religion, that men are not wiser than their 
fathers, and that innovation in worship is likely to 
bring down the wrath of the gods. Moreover, as 
the edict points out, this Manichaeanism came from 
Persia, the traditional enemy of Rome, and threat- 
ened to corrupt the " modest and tranquil Roman 
people " with the detestable manners and infamous 
laws of the Orient. " Modest and tranquil " are not 
the epithets which posterity has chosen to apply to 
the Roman people of the Empire, but Diocletian's 
point is obvious. Manichaeanism was a device of 
the enemy ; it must be poison, therefore, to the good 
Roman. Such an argument was born of prejudice 
rather than of reason ; we shall see- it applied yet 
again to the Christians, and applied even by the 
Christian Church to its own schismatics and heretics. 
It was during the winter of 302 that the question 
was carefully debated by Diocletian and Galerius — 
the latter was staying with the senior Augustus 
at Nicomedia — whether it was advisable to take 
repressive measures against the Christians. Accord- 
ing to Lactantius, Galerius clamoured for blood, 
while Diocletian represented how mischievous it 
would be to throw the whole world into a ferment, 
and how the Christians were wont to welcome mar- 
tyrdom. He argued, therefore, that it would be quite 
enough if they purged the court and the army. 
Then, as neither would give way, a Council was 
called, which sided with Galerius rather than with 
Diocletian, and it was decided to consult the oracle 
of Apollo at Miletus. Apollo returned the strange 



24 Constantine 

answer that there were just men on the earth who 
prevented him from speaking the truth, and gave 
that as the reason why the oracles which proceeded 
from his tripods were false. The "just men " were, 
of course, the Christians. Diocletian yielded, only 
stipulating that there should be no bloodshed, while 
Galerius was for burning all Christians alive. Such 
is Lactantius's story, and it does credit to Diocletian, 
inasmuch as it shews his profound reluctance to dis- 
turb the internal peace which his own wise policy 
had established. As a propitious day, the Festival 
of the Terminalia, February 23, 303, was chosen for 
the inauguration of the anti-Christian campaign. 
The church at Nicomedia was levelled to the ground 
by the Imperial troops and, on the following day, an 
edict was issued depriving Christians of their priv- 
ileges as full Roman citizens. They were to be de- 
prived of all their honours and distinctions, whatever 
their rank ; they were to be liable to torture ; they 
were to be penalised in the courts by not being 
allowed to prosecute for assault, adultery, and theft. 
Lactantius well says ^ that they were to lose their 
liberty and their right of speech. The penalties ex- 
tended even to slaves. If a Christian slave refused 
to renounce his religion he was never to receive his 
freedom. The churches, moreover, were to be de- 
stroyed and Christians were forbidden to meet to- 
gether. No bloodshed was threatened, as Diocletian 
had stipulated, but the Christian was reduced to the 
condition of a pariah. The edict was no sooner 

* Libertatem denique ac voce??t non haberent (De Mort, Per sec, 
c. 13). 



The Persecution of the Church 25 

posted up than, with a bitter jibe at the Emperors, 
some bold, indignant Christian tore it down. He 
was immediately arrested, tortured, racked, and 
burnt at the stake. Diocletian had been right. 
The Christians made willing martyrs. 

Soon afterwards there was an outbreak of fire at 
the palace. Lactantius accuses Galerius of having 
contrived it himself so that he might throw the 
odium upon the Christians, and he adds that Gal- 
erius so worked upon the fears of Diocletian that 
he gave leave to every official in the palace to use 
the rack in the hope of getting at the truth. No- 
thing was discovered, but fifteen days later there 
was another mysterious outbreak. Galerius, pro- 
testing that he would stay no longer to be burnt 
alive, quitted the palace at once, though it was bad 
weather for travelling. Then, says Lactantius, Dio- 
cletian allowed his blind terrors to get the better of 
him, and the persecution began in earnest. He 
forced his wife and daughter to recant ; he purged 
the palace, and put to death some of his most pow- 
erful eunuchs, while the Bishop of Nicomedia was 
beheaded, and crowds of less distinguished victims 
were thrown into prison. Whether there was in- 
cendiarism or not, no one can say. Eusebius, in- 
deed, tells us that Constantine, who was living in the 
palace at the time, declared years afterwards to the 
bishops at the Council of Nicsea that he had seen 
with his own eyes the lightning descend and set fire 
to the abode of the godless Emperor. But neither 
Constantine nor Eusebius was to be believed im- 
plicitly when it was a question of some supernatural 



26 Constantine 

occurrence between earth and heaven. The double 
conflagration is certainly suspicious, but tyrants 
do not, as a rule, set fire to their own palaces when 
they themselves are in residence, however strong 
may be their animus against some obnoxious party 
in the State. 

A few months passed and Diocletian published a 
second edict ordering the arrest of all bishops and 
clergy who refused to surrender their " holy books " 
to the civil officers. Then, in the following year, 
came a third, offering freedom to all in prison if they 
consented to sacrifice, and instructing magistrates to 
use every possible means to compel the obstinate 
to abandon their faith. These edicts provoked a 
frenzy of persecution, and Gaul and Britain alone 
enjoyed comparative immunity. Constantius could 
not, indeed, entirely disregard an order which bore 
the joint names of the two Augusti, but he took 
care that there was no over-zealousness, and, ac- 
cording to a well-known passage of Lactantius, he 
allowed the meeting-places of the Christians, the 
buildings of wood and stone which could easily be 
restored, to be torn down, but preserved in safety 
the true temple of God, viz., the bodies of His 
worshippers.* Elsewhere the persecution may be 
traced from province to province and from city to 
city in the mournful and poignant documents known 
as the Passions of the Martyrs. Naturally it varied 
in intensity according to local conditions and accord- 
ing to the personal predilections of the magistrates. 

* Verum autem Dei templum, quod est in honmiibus , incolume 
servavit. ( De Mort, Per sec c. 15). 



The Persecution of the Church 27 

Where the populace was fiercely anti-Christian or 
where the pagan priests were zealous, there the 
Christians suffered severely. Their churches would 
be razed to the ground and the prisons would be 
full. Some of the weaker brethren would recant; 
others would hide themselves or quit the district ; 
others again would suffer martyrdom. In more for- 
tunate districts, where public opinion was with the 
Christians, the churches might not be destroyed, 
though they stood empty and silent. 

The fiercest persecution seems to have taken 
place in Asia Minor. There had been a partial re- 
volt of the troops at Antioch, easily suppressed by 
the Antiochenes themselves, but Diocletian appar- 
ently connected it in some way with the Christians 
and let his hand fall heavily upon them. Just at 
this time, moreover, in the neighbouring kingdom of 
Armenia, Saint Gregory the Illuminator was preach- 
ing the gospel with marvellous success, and the 
Christians of Cappadocia, just over the border, paid 
the penalty for the uneasiness which this ferment 
caused to their rulers. We hear, for example, in 
Phrygia of a whole Christian community being 
extirpated. Magistrates, senators, and people — 
Christians all— had taken refuge in their principal 
church, to which the troops set fire. Eusebius, in 
his History of the Church, paints a lamentable 
picture of the persecution which he himself witnessed 
in Palestine and Syria, and, \nh.\5 Life of Constantine, 
he says * that even the barbarians across the 
frontier were so touched by the sufferings of the 

* Vita Const., ii., 53. 



28 Constantine 

Christian fugitives that they gave them shelter. 
Athanasius, too, declares that he often heard sur- 
vivors of the persecution say that many pagans 
risked the loss of their goods and the chance of 
imprisonment in order to hide Christians from the 
officers of the law. There is no question of ex- 
aggeration. The most horrible tortures were in- 
vented ; the most barbarous and degrading pun- 
ishments were devised. The victim who was simply 
ordered to be decapitated or drowned was highly 
favoured. In a very large number of cases death 
was delayed as long as possible. The sufferer, after 
being tortured on the rack, or having eyes or tongue 
torn out, or foot or hand struck off, was taken back 
to prison to recover for a second examination. 

Even when the victim was dead the law frequent- 
ly pursued the corpse with its futile vengeance. It 
was no uncommon thing for a body to be thrown to 
the dogs, or to be chopped into fragments and cast 
into the sea, or to be burnt and the ashes flung upon 
running water. He was counted a merciful judge 
who allowed the friends of the martyr to bear away 
the body to decent burial and lay it in the grave. 
At Augsburg, when the magistrate heard that the 
mother and three servants of a converted courtesan, 
named Afra, had placed her body in a tomb, he 
ordered all four to be enclosed in one grave with 
the corpse and burnt alive. 

It is, of course, quite impossible to compute the 
number of the victims, but it was unquestionably 
very large. We do not, perhaps, hear of as many 
bishops and priests being put to death as might 



The Persecution of the Church 29 

have been expected, but if the extreme rigour of 
the law had been enforced the Empire would have 
been turned into a shambles. The fact is, as we 
have said, that very much depended upon the per- 
sonal character of the Governors and the local magis- 
trates. In some places altars were put up in the 
law courts and no one was allowed either to bring 
or defend a suit without offering sacrifice. In other 
towns they were erected in the market squares and 
by the side of the public fountains, so that one could 
neither buy nor sell, nor even draw water, without 
being challenged to do homage to the gods. Some 
Governors, such as Datianus in Spain, Theotecnus 
in Galatia, Urbanus of Palestine, and Hierocles of 
Bithynia and Egypt, were noted for the ferocity with 
which they carried out the edicts; others — and, 
when the evidence is carefully examined, the hu- 
mane judges seem to have formed the majority — 
presided with reluctance at these lamentable trials. 
Many exhausted every means in their power to con- 
vert the prisoners back to the old religion, partly 
from motives of humanity, and partly, no doubt, 
because their success in this respect gained them 
the notice and favour of their superiors. 

We hear of magistrates who ordered the attend- 
ants of the court to place by force a few grains of 
incense in the hands of the prisoner and make him 
sprinkle it upon the altar, or to thrust into his 
mouth a portion of the sacrificial meat. The victim 
would protest against his involuntary defilement, 
but the magistrate would declare that the offering 
had been made. Often, the judge sought to bribe 



30 Constantine 

the accused into apostasy. " If you obey the Gov- 
ernor," St. Victor of Galatia was told, "you shall 
have the title of ' Friend of Caesar ' and a post in 
the palace." Theotecnus promised Theodotus of 
Ancyra " the favour of the Emperors, the highest 
municipal dignities, and the priesthood of Apollo." 
The bribe was great, but it was withstood. The 
steadfast confessor gloried in replying to every fresh 
taunt, entreaty, or bribe, " I am a Christian." It 
was to him the only, as well as the highest argument. 
Sometimes the kindest-hearted judges were driven 
to exasperation by their total inability to make the 
slightest impression upon the Christians. " Do 
abandon your foolish boasting," said Maximus, the 
Governor of Cilicia, to Andronicus, " and listen to 
me as you would listen to your father. Those who 
have played the madman before you have gained 
nothing by it. Pay honour to our Princes and our 
fathers and submit yourself to the gods," " You 
do well," came the reply, " to call them your fathers, 
for you are the sons of Satan, the sons of the Devil, 
whose works you perform." A few more remarks 
passed between judge and prisoner and then Max- 
imus lost his temper. " I will make you die by 
inches," he exclaimed. " I despise," retorted An- 
dronicus, " your threats and your menaces." While 
an old man of sixty-five was being led to the tor- 
ture, a friendly centurion said to him, " Have pity 
on yourself and sacrifice." " Get thee from me, 
minister of Satan," was the reply. The main feel- 
ing uppermost in the mind of the confessor was one 
of exultation that he had been found worthy to 



The Persecution of the Church 31 

suffer. Such a spirit could neither be bent nor 
broken. 

Of active disloyalty to the Emperor there is abso- 
lutely no trace. Many Christian soldiers boasted of 
their long and honourable service in the army ; civil- 
ians were wilhng to pay unto Caesar the things that 
were Caesar's. But Christ was their King. " There 
is but one God," cried Alphaeus and Zachaeus at 
Caesarea, " and only one King and Lord, who is 
Jesus Christ." To the pagan judge this was not 
merely blasphemy against the gods, but treason 
against the Emperor. Sometimes, but not often, 
the martyr's feelings got the better of him and he 
cursed the Emperor. " May you be punished," cried 
the dauntless Andronicus to Maximus, when the 
ofificers of the court had thrust between his lips the 
bread and meat of sacrifice, '* may you be punished, 
bloody tyrant, you and they who have given you the 
power to defile me with your impious sacrifices. 
One day you will know what you have done to the 
servants of God." '* Accursed scoundrel," said the 
judge, " dare you curse the Emperors who have 
given the world such long and profound peace ?" 
" I have cursed them and I will curse them," replied 
Andronicus, " these public scourges, these drinkers 
of blood, who have turned the world upside down. 
May the immortal hand of God tolerate them no 
longer and punish their cruel amusements, that they 
may learn and know the evil they have done to 
God's servants." No doubt, most Christians agreed 
with the sentiments expressed by Andronicus, but 
they rarely gave expression to them. " I have 



32 Constantine 

obeyed the Emperors all the years of my life," said 
Bishop Philippus of Heraclea, " and, when their com- 
mands are just, I hasten to obey. For the Holy 
Scripture has ordered me to render to God what is 
due to God and to Csesar what is due to Caesar. I 
have kept this commandment without flaw down to 
the present time, and it only remains for me to give 
preference to the things of heaven over the attrac- 
tions of this world. Remember what I have already 
said several times, that I am a Christian and that I 
refuse to sacrifice to your gods." Nothing could be 
more dignified or explicit. It is the Emperor-God 
and his fellow deities of Olympus, not the Emperor, 
to whom the Christian refuses homage. During a 
trial at Catania in Sicily the judge, Calvisianus, said 
to a Christian, " Unhappy man, adore the gods, 
render homage to Mars, Apollo, and ^sculapius." 
The answer came without a second's hesitation : " I 
adore the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — the Holy 
Trinity — beyond whom there is no God. Perish the 
gods who have not made heaven and earth and all 
that they contain. I am a Christian." From first to 
last, in Spain as in Africa, in Italy as in Sicily, this is 
the alpha and the omega of the Christian position, 
" Christianus suiny 

To what extent was the martyrdom self-inflicted ? 
How far did the Christians pile with their own hands 
the faggots round the stakes to which they were 
tied? It is significant that some churches found it 
necessary to condemn the extraordinary exaltation 
of spirit which drove men and women to force them- 
selves upon the notice of the authorities and led 



The Persecution of the Church 33 

them to regard flight from danger as culpable wake- 
ness. They not only did not encourage but strictly 
forbade the overthrowing of pagan statues or altars 
by zealous Christians anxious to testify to their 
faith. They did not wish, that is to say, to provoke 
certain reprisals. Yet, in spite of all their efforts, 
martyrdom was constantly courted by rash and ex- 
citable natures in the frenzy of religious fanaticism, 
like that which impelled Theodorus of Amasia in 
Pontus to set fire to a temple of Cybele in the mid- 
dle of the city and then boast openly of the deed. 
Often, however, such martyrs were mere children. 
Such was Eulalia of Merida, a girl of twelve, whose 
parents, suspecting her intention, had taken her 
into the country to be out of harm's way. She es- 
caped their vigilance, returned to the city, and, 
standing before the tribunal of the judge, proclaimed 
herself a Christian. 

" Mane superba tribunal adit, 
Fascibus ads tat et in jnediis.'* 

The judge, instead of bidding the officials remove 
the child, began to argue with her, and the argu- 
ment ended in Eulalia spitting in his face and over- 
turning the statue which had been brought for her 
to worship. Then came torture and the stake, a 
martyred saint, and in later centuries a stately 
church, flower festivals, and a charming poem from 
the Christian poet, Prudentius. But even his grace- 
ful verses do not reconcile us to the pitiful futility of 
such child-martyrdom as that of Eulalia of Merida 
or Agnes of Rome. 

3 



34 Constantine 

Or take, again, the pathetic inscription found at 
Testur, in Northern Africa ; 

^^Sanctce Tres j 
Maxvna, 
Donatilla 
Et Secwida, 
Bona Fuella." 

These were three martyrs of Thuburbo. Two of 
them, Maxima and Donatilla, had been denounced 
to the judge by another woman. Secunda, a child 
of twelve, saw her friends from a window in her 
father's house, as they were being dragged off to 
prison. " Do not abandon me, my sisters," she 
cried. They tried to wave her back. She insisted. 
They warned her of the cruel fate which was certain 
to await her ; Secunda declared her confidence in 
Him who comforts and consoles the little ones. In 
the end they let her accompany them. All three 
were sentenced to be torn by the wild beasts of the 
amphitheatre, but when they stood up to face that 
cruel death, a wild bear came and lay at their feet. 
The judge, Anulinus, then ordered them to be 
decapitated. Such is the story that lies behind 
those simple and touching words, " Secunda, Bona 
Puella." 

Nor were young men backward in their zeal for 
the martyr's crown. Eusebius tells us of a band of 
eight Christian youths at Caesarea, who confronted 
the Governor, Urbanus, in a body shouting, " We are 
Christians," and of another youth named Aphianus, 
who, while reading the Scriptures, heard the voice 



The Persecution of the Church 35 

of the heralds summoning the people to sacrifice. 
He at once made his way to the Governor's house, 
and, just as Urbanus was in the act of offering liba- 
tion, Aphianus caught his arm and upbraided him 
for his idolatry. He simply flung his life away. 

In this connection may be mentioned the five 
martyred statuary workers belonging to a Pannonian 
marble quarry. They had been converted by the 
exhortations of Bishop Cyril, of Antioch, who had 
been condemned to labour in their quarry, and, once 
having become Christians, their calling gave them 
great searching of heart. Did not the Scriptures 
forbid them to make idols or graven images of false 
gods ? When, therefore, they refused to undertake 
a statue of ^sculapius, they were challenged 
as Christians, and sentenced to death. Yet they 
had not thought it wrong to carve figures of Victory 
and Cupid, and they seem to have executed without 
scruple a marble group showing the sun in a chariot, 
doubtless satisfying themselves that these were 
merely decorative pieces, which did not necessarily 
involve the idea of worship. But they preferred to 
die rather than make a god for a temple, even 
though that god were the gentle ^Esculapius, the 
Healer. 

We might dwell at much greater length upon this 
absorbing subject of the persecution of Diocletian, 
and draw upon the Passions of the Saints for further 
examples of the marvellous fortitude with which so 
many of the Christians endured the most fiendish 
tortures for the sake of their faith. " I only ask one 
favour," said the intrepid Asterius : " it is that you 



36 Constantine 

will not leave unlacerated a single part of my body." 
In the presence of such splendid fidelity and such 
unswerving faith, which made even the weakest 
strong and able to endure, one sees why the eventual 
triumph of the Church was certain and assured. 
One can also understand why the memory and the 
relics of the martyrs were preserved with such pas- 
sionate devotion ; why their graves were considered 
holy and credited with powers of healing; and why, 
too, the names of their persecutors were remembered 
with such furious hatred. It may be too much to 
expect the early chroniclers of the Church to be fair 
to those who framed and those who put into execu- 
tion the edicts of persecution, but we, at least, after 
so many centuries, and after so many persecutions 
framed and directed by the Churches themselves, 
must try to look at the question from both sides and 
take note of the absolute refusal of the Christian 
Church to consent to the slightest compromise in its 
attitude of hostility to the religious system which it 
had already dangerously undermined. 

It is not easy from a study of the Passions of the 
Saints to draw any sweeping generalisations as to 
what the public at large thought of the torture and 
execution of Christians. We get a glimpse, indeed, 
of the ferocity of the populace at Rome when Max- 
imian went thither to celebrate the Ludi Cereales in 
304. The " Passion of St. Savinus " shews an excited 
crowd gathered in the Circus Maximus, roaring for 
blood and repeating twelve times over the savage 
cry, " Away with the Christians and our happiness is 
complete. By the head of Augustus let not a Christ- 



The Persecution of the Church 37 

ian survive."* Then, when they caught sight of 
Hermogenianus, the city prsefect, they called ten 
times over to the Emperor, " May you conquer, 
Augustus! Ask the praefect what it is we are 
shouting." Such a scene was natural enough in the 
Circus of Rome; was it typical of the Empire? 
Doubtless in all the great cities, such as Alexandria, 
Antioch, Ephesus, Carthage, the " baser sort " would 
be quite ready to shout, " Away with the Christians." 
But it is to be remembered that we find no trace any- 
where in this persecution of a massacre on the scale 
of that of St. Bartholomew or the Sicilian Vespers. 
On the contrary, we see that though the prisons 
were full, the relations of the Christians were usually 
allowed to visit them, take them food, and listen to 
their exhortations. Pamphilus of Csesarea, who was 
in jail for two years, not only received his friends 
during that period, but was able to go on making 
copies of the Scriptures ! 

We rarely hear of the courts being packed with 
anti-Christian crowds, or of the judges being incited 
by popular clamour to pass the death sentence. The 
reports of the trials shew us silent, orderly courts, 
with the judges anxious not so much to condemn to 
death as to make a convert. If Diocletian had 
wanted blood he could have had it in rivers, not in 
streams. But he did not. He wished to eradicate 
what he believed to be an impious, mischievous, and, 
from the point of view of the State's security, a 
dangerous superstition. There was no talk of per- 

* Christiani tollantur et voluptas constat j Per caput A ugusti Chris- 
tiani non sint. 



38 



Constantine 



secuting for the sake of saving the souls of heretics ; 
that lamentable theory was reserved for a later day. 
Diocletian persecuted for what he considered to be 
the good of the State. He lived to witness the full 
extent of his failure, and to realise the appalling 
crime which he had committed against humanity, 
amid the general overthrow of the political system 
which he had so laboriously set up. 




CHAPTER III 

THE ABDICATION OF DIOCLETIAN AND THE SUC- 
CESSION OF CONSTANTINE 

ON the 1st of May, in the year 305, Diocletian, 
by an act of unexampled abnegation, re- 
signed the purple and retired into private life. The 
renunciation was publicly performed, not in Rome, 
for Rome had ceased to be the centre of the politi- 
cal world, but on a broad plain in Bithynia, three 
miles from Nicomedia, which long had been the 
Emperor's favourite residence. In the centre of the 
plain rose a little hill, upon which- stood a column 
surmounted by a statue of Jupiter. There, years 
before, Diocletian had with his own hands invested 
Galerius with the symbols of power ; there he was 
now to perform the last act of a ruler by nominating 
those whom he thought most fit to succeed him. 
A large platform had been constructed ; the soldiers 
of the legions had been ordered to assemble in sol- 
dier's meeting and listen to their chief's farewell. 
Diocletian took leave of them in few words. He 
was old, he said, and infirm. He craved for rest 
after a life of toil. The Empire needed stronger 

39 



40 Constantine 

and more youthful hands than his. His work was 
done. It was time for him to go. 

The two Augusti were laying down their powers 
simultaneously, for Maximian was performing a simi- 
lar act of renunciation at Milan. The two Caesars, 
Constantius and Galerius, would thus automatically 
move up into the empty places and become Augusti 
in their stead. It had been necessary, therefore, to 
select two new Caesars, and these Diocletian was 
about to present to the loyalty of the legions. We 
are told that the secret had been well kept, and 
that the soldiers waited with suppressed excitement 
until Diocletian suddenly announced that his choice 
had fallen upon Severus, one of his trusted generals, 
and upon Maximin Daza, a nephew of Galerius. 
Severus had already been sent to Milan to be in- 
vested by Maximian ; Maximin was present on the 
tribunal and was then and there robed in the purple. 
The ceremony over, Diocletian — a private citizen 
once more, though he still retained the title of Au- 
gustus — drove back to Nicomedia and at once set 
out for Salona, on the Adriatic, where he had built 
a sumptuous palace for his retirement. 

The scene which we have depicted is described 
most fully and most graphically by a historian whose 
testimony, unfortunately, is entirely suspect in mat- 
ters of detail. The author of The Deaths of the 
Persecutors — it is very doubtful whether Lactan- 
tius, to whom the work has long been attributed, 
really wrote it, but for the sake of convenience of 
reference we may credit him with it — is at once 
the most untrustworthy and the most vigorous and 



^^,,t&* ^v**^ 






KQNZTANTINOZ MErA2, 



CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 

FROM GROSVENOR'S " CONSTANTINOPLE.' 



The Abdication of Diocletian 41 

attractive writer of the period. His object through- 
out is to blacken the characters of the Emperors 
who persecuted the Christian Church, and he does 
not scruple to distort their actions, pervert their 
motives, and even invent, with well calculated malice, 
stories to their discredit. Lactantius knows, or pre- 
tends to know, all that takes place even in the most 
secret recesses of the palace ; he recounts all that 
passes at the most confidential conferences; and 
with consummate artistry he throws in circumstan- 
tial details and touches of local colour which give an 
appearance of truth, but are really the most convinc- 
ing proofs of falsehood. Lactantius represents the 
abdication of Diocletian as the act of an old man, 
shattered in health, and even in mind, by a distress- 
ing malady sent by Heaven as the just punishment 
of his crimes. He depicts him cowering in tears be- 
fore the impatient insolence of Galerius, now peremp- 
torily clamouring for the succession with threats of 
civil war. They discuss who shall be the new Cae- 
sars. "Whom shall we appoint?" asks Diocletian. 
" Severus," says Galerius. " What ? " says the other, 
"that drunken sot of a dancer who turns night into 
day and day into night ? " " He is worthy," replies 
Galerius, " for he has proved a faithful general, 
and I have sent him to Maximian to be invested." 
" Well, well," says the old man, " who is the second 
choice?" "He is here," says Galerius, indicating 
his nephew, a young semi-barbarian named Maximin 
Daza. " Why, who is this you offer me ? " " He is 
my kinsman," is the reply. Then said Diocletian, 
with a groan, " These are not fit men to whom to 



42 Constantine 

entrust the care of the State." " I have proved 
them," said Galerius. " Well, you must look to 
it," rejoins Diocletian, "you who are about to as- 
sume the reins of the Empire. I have toiled enough. 
While I ruled, I took care that the State stood 
safe. If any harm now befalls, the fault is not 
mme. ^ 

Such is a characteristic specimen of Lactantius's 
history, and so, when he comes to describe the cere- 
mony of abdication, he makes Galerius draw Max- 
imin Daza to the front of the group of imperial 
officials by whom Diocletian is surrounded, and re- 
presents the soldiers as staring in surprise at their 
new Caesar, as at one whom they had never seen 
before. Yet a favourite nephew of Galerius can 
scarcely have been a stranger to the troops of Nico- 
media. Galerius not only — according to Lactantius 
—drew forward Maximin Daza, but at the same time 
rudely thrust back into the throng the son of Con- 
stantius, the senior of the two new Augusti. This 
was young Constantine, the future Emperor, who 
for some years past had been living at the Court of 
Diocletian. 

But it was no broken down Emperor in his dotage, 
passing, according to the spasms of his malady, 
from sanity to insanity, who resigned the throne 
on the plain of Nicomedia. Diocletian was but 
fifty-nine years of age. He had just recovered, it 
is true, from a very severe illness, which, even on 
the testimony of Lactantius, had caused "grief in 
the palace, sadness and tears among his guards, and 

* Lactant., £>£ Mort. Persec, c. i8. 



The Abdication of Diocletian 43 

anxious suspense throughout the whole State." * But 
his brain was never clearer than when he took final 
leave of his troops. His abdication was the culmin- 
ating point of his policy. He had planned it twenty 
years before. He had kept it before his eyes through- 
out a long and busy reign. It was the completion 
of, the finishing touch to his great political system. 
It would have been perfectly easy for Diocletian 
to forswear himself. Probably very few of his con- 
temporaries believed that he would fulfil his promise 
to abdicate after twenty years of reign. Kings talkl 
of the allurements of retirement, but they usually « 
cling to power as tenaciously as to life. The first 
Augustus had delighted to mystify his Ministers of 
State by speaking of restoring the Republic. He 
died an Emperor. Diocletian, alone of the Roman 
Emperors, laid down the sceptre when he was at the 
height of his glory. It was a hazardous experiment, 
but he was faithful to his principles. He thought it 
best for the world that its master should not grow 
old and feeble on the throne. 

Constantine, of whom we have just caught a 
glimpse at the abdication of Diocletian, was born 
either in 273 or 274. The uncertainty attaching to 
the year of his birth attaches even more to its place. 
No one now believes that he was born in Britain — 
a pleasing fiction which was invented by English 
monks, who delighted to represent his mother 
Helena as the daughter of a British King, though 
they were quite at a loss where to locate his king- 
dom. The only foundation for this was a passage 

* De Mori. Per sec, c. 17. 



44 Constantine 

in one of the Panegyrists, who said that Constan- 
tine had bestowed lustre upon Britain " illic ori- 
undoy But the words are now taken as referring to 
his accession and not to his birth. He was certainly 
proclaimed Emperor in Britain, and might thus be 
said to have " sprung thence." Constantine's birth- 
place seems to have been either Naissus, a city in 
Upper Moesia, or Drepanum, a city near Nicomedia. 
The balance of evidence, though none of it is very 
trustworthy, inclines to the former. 

His father was Constantius Chlorus, afterwards 
Csesar and Augustus, but at the time of Constan- 
tine's birth merely a promising ofificer in the Roman 
army. Constantius belonged to one of the leading 
families of Moesia and his mother was a niece of 
the capable and soldierly Claudius, the conqueror of 
the Goths. Claudius had only been dead four years 
when Constantine was born, and we may suppose 
that it was his influence which had set Constantius 
in the way of rapid promotion. He had formed one 
of those secondary marriages which were recognised 
by Roman law, when the wife was not of the same 
social standing as the husband. Helena is said to 
have been the daughter of an innkeeper of Drepanum, 
and Constantine's enemies lost no opportunity of 
dweUing upon the obscurity of his ancestry upon his 
mother's side. But that he was born in wedlock is be- 
yond question. Had the relationship between Con- 
stantius and Helena been an irregular one, there would 
have been no need for Maximian to insist on a divorce 
when he ratified Constantius's elevation to the purple 
by giving him the hand of his daughter, Theodora. 



The Succession of Constantine 45 

Of Constantine's early years we know nothing, 
though we may suppose that they were spent in the 
eastern half of the Empire. Constantius served with 
the eastern legions in the campaigns which preceded 
the accession of Diocletian in 284, and it is as a 
young ofificer in the entourage of that Emperor that 
Constantine makes his earliest appearance in history. 
Eusebius tells us * that he first saw the future 
champion of Christianity in the train of Diocletian 
during one of the latter's visits to Palestine. He 
recalls his vivid remembrance of the young Prince 
standing at the Emperor's right hand and attracting 
the gaze of all beholders by the beauty of his person 
and the imposing air which betokened his con- 
sciousness of having been born to rule. Eusebius 
adds that while Constantine's physical strength 
extorted the respectful admiration of his younger 
associates, his remarkable qualities of prudence and 
wisdom aroused the jealousy and excited the appre- 
hensions of his chiefs. However, the recollections 
of the Bishop of Csesarea, with half a century of 
interval, are somewhat suspect, and we need see no 
more than a high-spirted, handsome, and keen-witted 
Prince in Eusebius's " paragon of bodily strength, 
physical beauty, and mental distinction." As for 
Diocletian's jealous fears, they are best refuted by 
the fact that Constantine was promoted to be a 
tribune of the first rank and saw considerable military 
service. The foolish stories that his superiors set 
him to fight a gigantic Sarmatian in single combat, 
and dared him to contend against ferocious wild 
* De Vita Const, , i. , 19. 



46 Constantine 

beasts, in the hope that his pride and courage might 
be his undoing, may be dismissed as childish. If 
Diocletian had feared Constantine, Constantine 
would never have survived his residence in the 
palace. 
,X It is certainly remarkable that we should know so 
little, not only of the youth but of the early man- 
hood of Constantine, who was at least in his thirty- 
first year when Diocletian retired into private life. 
Why had he spent all those years in the East in- 
stead of sharing with his father the dangers and 
glories of his Gallic and British campaigns ? The 
answer is doubtless to be found in the fact that it 
was no part of Diocletian's system for the son 
to succeed the father. Constantius's loyalty was 
never in doubt, but Constantine, if Zosimus * can 
be trusted, had already given evidence of consuming 
ambition to rule. However that may be, it is 
obvious that his position became much more haz- 
ardous when Galerius succeeded Diocletian as 
supreme ruler in the palace of Nicomedia. One 
can understand Galerius wondering whether the 
capable young Prince, who slept under his roof, 
was destined to cross his path, and the anxiety 
of Constantius, conscious of declining strength, that 
his long-absent son should join him. Constantine 
himself might well be uneasy, and scheme to quit 
a place where he could not hope to satisfy his 
natural ambitions. We need not doubt, therefore, 
that Constantius repeatedly sent messages to Gale- 

* Zosimus, ii., 8. Ttefiicpavri<i ydp rfv r/Srj itoXXoti 6 Harexoov 
dvTov epooi r^S ^a^iXeiai. 



The Succession of Constantine 47 

rius asking that his son might come to him, or that 
the son was eager to comply. 

Lactantius, * who does his best to make history 
romantic and exciting, describes the eventual escape 
of Constantine in one of his most graphic chapters. 
He shows us Galerius in his palace reluctantly 
signing an order which authorised Constantine to 
travel post across the Continent of Europe. He 
only consented to do so, we are told, because he 
could find no pretext for further delay, and he gave 
the order to Constantine late in the afternoon, on 
the understanding that he should see him again 
in the morning to receive his final instructions. 
Yet all the time, says Lactantius, Galerius was 
scheming to find some excuse for keeping him in 
Nicomedia, or contemplated sending a message to 
Severus, asking him to delay Constantine when he 
reached the border of northern Italy. Galerius then 
took dinner, retired for the night, and slept so well 
and deliberately that he did not wake until the 
following midday (Cum consulto ad medium diem 
usque dormisset). He then sent for Constantine to 
come to his apartment. But Constantine was 
already gone, scouring the roads as fast as the post 
horses could carry him, and so anxious to increase 
the distance between himself and Galerius that he 
caused the tired beasts to be hamstrung at every 
stage. He had waited for Galerius to retire and 
had then slipped away, lest the Emperor should 
change his mind. Galerius was furious when he 
found that he had been outwitted. He ordered 

* De Mort. Per sec, c. 24. 



48 Constantine 

pursuit. His servants came back to tell him that 
the fugitive had swept the stables clear of horses. 
And then Galerius could scarce restrain his tears 
{Vtx lacrimas tenebaf). 

It is a story which does infinite credit to Lactan- 
tius's feeling for strong melodramatic situation. No 
picturesque detail is omitted — the setting sun, the 
tyrant plotting vengeance over dinner, his resolve to 
sleep long, his baffled triumph, the escaping hero, 
and the butchery of the horses. Yet we question 
if there is more than a shred of truth in the whole 
story. Galerius would not have given Constantine 
the sealed order overnight had he intended to take 
it back the next morning. A word to the officer of 
the watch in the palace and to the officer on duty at 
the city gate would have prevented Constantine 
from quitting Nicomedia. The imperial post service 
must have been very much underhorsed if the Em- 
peror's servants could not find mounts for the effec- 
tive pursuit of a single fugitive. Galerius may very 
well have been unwilling for Constantine to go, and 
Constantine doubtless covered the early stages of 
his long journey at express speed, in order to min- 
imise the chance of recall, but the lurid details of 
Lactantius are probably simply the outcome of his 
own lively imagination. 

Constantine seems to have found his father at the 
port of Gessoriacum (Boulogne), just waiting for a 
favourable wind to carry him across the Channel 
into Britain. Constantius was ill, and welcomed 
with great joy the son whom he had not seen for 
many years. We do not know what time elapsed 



The Succession of Constantine 49 

before Constantius died at York, — apparently it was 
after the conclusion of a campaign in Scotland, — but 
before he died he commended to Constantine the 
welfare of his young half-brothers and half-sisters, 
the eldest of whom was no more than thirteen years 
of age, and he also evidently commended Constan- 
tine himself to the loyalty of his legions. The 
Emperor, we are informed both by Lactantius and 
by the author of the Seventh Panegyric, died with a 
mind at rest because he was sure of his heir and suc- 
cessor — Jupiter himself, says the pagan orator,* 
stretched out his right hand and welcomed him 
among the gods. Clearly, the ground had been 
well prepared, for no sooner was the breath out of 
Constantius's body than the troops saluted Constan- 
tine with the title of Augustus. AureHus Victor 
adds the interesting detail that he had no stouter 
supporter than Erocus, a Germanic King, who was 
serving as an auxiliary in the Roman army. Con- 
stantine was nothing loth, though, as usual in such 
circumstances, he may have feigned a reluctance 
which he did not feel. His panegyrist, indeed, 
represents him as putting spurs to his horse to 
enable him to shake off the robe which the soldiers 
sought to throw over his shoulders, and suggests 
that it had been Constantine's intention to write " to 
the senior Princes " and consult their wishes as to 
the choice of a successor. Had he done so, he knew 
very well that Galerius would have sent over to Britain 
some trusted heutenant of his own to take command 
and Constantine would have received peremptory 

* Pan. Vet., vii., 7. 
4 



50 Constantine 

orders to return. Instead of that, Constantine 
assumed the insignia of an Emperor, and wrote to 
Galerius announcing his elevation. Galerius, it is 
said, hesitated long as to the course he should 
adopt. That the news angered him we may be sure. 
Apart from all personal considerations, this choice 
of an Emperor by an army on active service was a 
return to the bad old days of military rule, from 
which Diocletian had rescued the Empire, and was 
a clear warning that the new system had not been 
established on a permanent basis. The only alter- 
native, however, before Galerius was acceptance or 
war. For the latter he was hardly prepared, and 
moreover, there was no reply to the argument that 
Constantius had been senior Augustus, and, there- 
fore, had been fully entitled to have his word in the 
appointment of a successor. Galerius gave way. 
He accepted the laurelled bust which Constantine 
had sent to him and, instead of throwing it into the 
fire with the ofificer who had brought it — which, 
according to Lactantius, had been his first impulse, 
— he sent the messenger back with a purple robe to 
his master as a sign that he frankly admitted his 
claims to partnership in the Empire. 

But while he acknov/ledged Constantine as Csesar, 
he refused him the full title of Augustus, which he 
bestowed upon the Caesar Severus. This has been 
represented as an act of petty spite. In reality, it was 
simply the automatic working of the system of Dio- 
cletian. The latest winner of imperial dignity nat- 
urally took the fourth place. Constantine accepted 
the check without demur. He had not spent so many 



The Succession of Constantine 51 

years by the side of Diocletian and Galerius without 
discovering that if it came to war, it was the master 
of the best army who was sure to be the winner and 
survivor, whether his title were Csesar or Augustus. 
Thus, in July, 306, Constantine commenced his 
eventful reign as the Caesar of the West, overlord of 
Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and commander of the 
Army of the Rhine, and, for the next six years, 
down to his invasion of Italy in 312, he spent most 
of his time in the Gallic provinces, where he gained 
the reputation of being a capable soldier and a 
generous Prince. 

Gaul was slowly recovering from chaos and ruin. 
During the anarchy which had preceded the acces- 
sion of Diocletian, she had lain at the mercy of the 
Germanic tribes across the Rhine. The Roman 
watch on the river had been almost abandoned ; the 
legions and the garrisons had been so weakened as 
to be powerless to keep the invader in check. The 
Gallic provinces were, in the striking words of the 
Panegyrist, "maddened by their injuries of the years 
gone by."* The result had been the peasant rising 
of the Bagaudae, ruthlessly suppressed by Maximian 
in 285, but the desperate condition of the country 
may be inferred from the fact that Diocletian and 
Maximian felt compelled to recognise the pretensions 
of Carausius in the province of Britain, which, for 
some years, was practically severed from the Empire. 
And, moreover, the peace of Gaul, which Maximian 
laboriously restored, was punctuated by invasion 
from the Germans across the Rhine. In the Pane- 

* Gallias J)riorum temportim injuriis efferatas. Pan,, vi. , 8. 



52 Constantine 

gyric of Mamertinus there occurs a curious passage, 
which shows with what eyes the Romans regarded 
that river. The orator is eulogising Maxim ian in his 
most fulsome strain for restoring tranquillity, and then 
says: " Was there ever an Emperor before our day 
who did not congratulate himself that the Gallic 
provinces were protected by the Rhine ? When did 
the Rhine shrink in its channel after a long spell of 
fine weather without making us shiver with fear? 
When did it ever swell to a flood without giving us 
an extra sense of security ? " * In other words, the 
danger of invasion rose and fell with the rising and 
falling of the Rhine. But now, continues the Pane- 
gyrist, thanks to Maximian, all our fears are gone. 
The Rhine may dry up and shrink until it can 
scarce roll the smooth pebbles in its limpid shal- 
lows, and none will be afraid. As far as I can see be- 
yond the Rhine, all is Roman" {QtLicquid ultra 
Rhenuni prospicio, Romanuni est). Rarely has a 
court rhetorician uttered a more audacious lie. 

There was no quality of permanence in the Gallic 
peace. Constantius took advantage of a temporary 
lull to recover Britain, but in 301 he was again 
fighting the invading Germans and Franks, winning 
victories which had to be repeated in the following 
summer, and making good the dearth of labourers on 
the devastated lands of Gaul by the captives he had 
taken in battle. There is a remarkable passage 
in the Fifth Panegyric in which the author refers 
to the long columns of captives which he had seen on 
the march in Gaul, men, women, and children on 

* Pan. Vet., ii., 7. 



The Succession of Constantine 53 

their way to the desert regions assigned to them, 
there to bring back to fertility by their labour as 
slaves the very countryside which in their freedom 
they had pillaged and laid waste. He recalled the 
familiar sight of these savage barbarians tamed to 
surprising quiescence, and waiting in the public 
places of the ^duan cities until they were told off 
to their new masters. Gaul had suffered so long 
from these roving ruffians from over the Rhine that 
the orator broke out into a paean of exultation at 
the thought that the once dreaded Chamavan or 
Frisian now tilled his estates for him, and that the 
vagabond freebooter had become an agricultural 
labourer, who drove his stock to the Gallic markets 
and cheapened the price of commodities by increasing 
the sources of supply. 

Full allowance must be made for exaggeration. 
The tribes, which are described as having been ex- 
tirpated, reappear later on in the same numbers as 
before, and there was security only so long as the Em- 
peror and his legions were on the spot. When Con- 
stantius crossed to Britain on the expedition which 
terminated with his death, the Franks took advantage 
of his absence to " violate the peace." * The words 
would seem to imply that there had been a treaty 
between Constantius and the Kings Ascaricus and 
Regaisus. They crossed the Rhine and Constantine, 
the new Caesar, hastened back from Britain to con- 
front them. Where the battle took place is not 
known, but both Kings were captured and, together 
with a multitude of their followers, flung to the 

* Pan., vii., lo. 



54 Constantine 

wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Treves. Constan- 
tine, who prided himself upon his clemency to a 
Roman foe, whose sensitive soul was harrowed 
when even a wicked enemy perished,* inflicted a fear- 
ful punishment. 

" Those slain in battle were beyond numbers ; very- 
many more were taken prisoners. All their flocks were 
carried off or butchered; all their villages burnt with 
fire ; all their young men, who were too treacherous to 
be admitted into the Roman army, and too brutal to 
act as slaves, were thrown to the wild beasts, and 
fatigued the ravening creatures because there were so 
many of them to kill." f 

Those atrocious sentences — written in praise, 
not in condemnation — assuredly throw some light 
upon the " perpetual hatreds and inextinguishable 
rage " :}: of the Franks. The common herd, says the 
rhetorician, may be slaughtered by the hundred 
without their becoming aware of the slaughter; it 
saves time and trouble to slay the leaders of an 
enemy whom you wish to conquer.§ The effect for 
the moment was decisive, even if we refuse to be- 
lieve that the castles and strong places, set at inter- 
vals along the banks of the Rhine, were henceforth 
regarded rather as ornaments to the frontier than as 
a source of protection. The bridge, too, which 
Constantine built at Cologne, was likewise built for 

* Gravate apud animuin tuum etiani mali pereunt. — Pan., x., 8. 
f Pan-, vii., I2. 

\ Odia perpetua et inexpiabiles iras. 

§ Compendium est devincendorum kostium duces sustulisse. — Pan., 
vii., II. 



The Succession of Constantine 55 

business and not, as the orator suggests, for the 
glory of the Empire and the beauty of the land- 
scape. When we read of the war galleys, which 
ceaselessly patrolled the waters of the Rhine, and 
of the soldiery stationed along its banks from source 
to mouth,* we may judge how anxiously the watch 
was kept, how nervously alert the Caesar or Augustus 
of the West required to be to guard the frontier, 
and how profound a respect he entertained for the 
free German whom he called barbarian. 

* Pan,, vii., 13. 




y 



CHAPTER IV 

CONSTANTINE AND HIS COLLEAGUES 

WHILE Constantine thus peacefully succeeded 
his father in the command of Gaul, Spain, 
and Britain, Italy was the scene of continued dis- 
turbance and of a successful usurpation. We have 
seen how Severus, an officer of the eastern army 
and a trusted friend of Galerius, had been chosen to 
take over the command which Maximian so unwill- 
ingly laid down at Milan. He was proclaimed Caesar, 
with Italy and Africa for his portion, and the admin- 
istration passed into his hands. But he preferred, 
apparently, to remain on the Illyrian border rather 
than shew himself in Rome, and, in his absence, 
Maxentius, a son of Maximian, took the opportunity 
of claiming the heritage of which he considered him- 
self to have been robbed. 

No single historian has had a good word to say for 
Maxentius, who is described by Lactantius as " a 
man of depraved mind, so consumed with pride 
and stubbornness that he paid no deference or re- 
spect either to his father or his father-in-law and was 
in consequence hated by both." * He had married 



* De Mart. Per sec, c. l8. 



56 



Constantine and His Colleagues 57 

a daughter of Galerius, but had been thrust on one 
side at the choosing of the new Caesars, and Severus 
and Maximin Daza had been preferred to him. He 
owed his elevation to the purple to a successful mu- 
tiny on the part of the Praetorians at Rome, and to 
the general discontent of the Roman population. 
It is evident that Rome watched with anger and 
jealousy the loss of her old exclusive and imperial 
position. The Emperors no longer resided on the 
Palatine, and ignored and disdained the city on the 
Tiber. Diocletian had preferred Nicomedia; Max- 
imian had fixed his Court at Milan. The imperial 
trappings at Rome were becoming a mockery. 
When, in addition to neglect, it was ordered that 
Italy should no longer be exempt from the census, 
and that the sacred Saturnian soil should submit to 
the exactions of the tax-gatherer, public opinion was 
ripe for revolt. 

Lactantius affects to see in the extension of the 
census to Rome a crowning example of Galerius's 
rapacity. He speaks of the Emperor " devouring 
the whole world," and declares that his madness 
carried him to such outrageous lengths that he 
would not suffer even the Roman people to escape 
bondage. But Galerius was thoroughly justified in 
the step he took. The immunity of Rome from 
taxation had been a monstrous piece of fiscal injus- 
tice to the rest of the world, designed merely to 
flatter the pride and purse of the Roman citizen. 
Galerius, moreover, had disbanded some of the Prae- 
torians — who were at once the Household Troops 
and the permanent garrison of the capital ; but now 



5^ Constantine 

that the Emperor and the Court had quitted Rome, 
their raison d' etre was gone. The vast expenditure 
on their pay and their barracks was money thrown 
away. Galerius, therefore, aboHshed the Praetorian 
camps. Such an act would give clear warning that 
the absence of the Emperors was not merely tempo- 
rary, but permanent, that the shifting of the capital 
had been due not merely to personal predilections, 
but to abiding political reasons. 

That the Praetorians themselves received the order 
with sullen anger may well be understood. For three 
centuries they had been the corps d'elite of the 
Roman army, enjoying special pay and special ad- 
vantages. They had made and unmade Emperors. 
They had repeatedly held the fortunes of the Em- 
pire in their hands. The traditions of their regiments 
fostered pride and arrogance, for they had seen little 
active service in their long history, and the severest 
conflicts they had had to face were tumults in the im- 
perial city. Now their privileges were destroyed by 
a stroke of the pen, and needing but little insti- 
gation to rebellion, they offered the purple to Max- 
entius, who gladly accepted it Nor, it is said, were 
the people unfavourable to his cause, for Maxentius's 
agents had already been busy among them, and so, 
after Abellius, the prefect of the city, had been mur- 
dered, Maxentius made himself master of Rome 
without a struggle. His position, however, was 
very precarious. He had practically no army and 
he knew that neither Galerius nor Severus would 
recognise his pretensions. The latter had already 
taken over the command of the armies of Maximian, 



Constantine and His Colleagues 59 

and was the nominee of Galerius, who at once incited 
his colleague to march upon Rome. Maxentius saw 
that his only chance of success was to corrupt his 
father's old legions, and with this object in view he 
sent a purple robe to Maximian, urging him to 
resume his place and title of Augustus. Maximian 
agreed with alacrity. He had been spending his 
enforced leisure not in amateur gardening and con- 
tentment, like his colleague at Salona, but in his 
Campanian villa, chafing at his lost dignity. Hence 
he eagerly responded to the summons of his son and 
resumed the purple, not so much as Maxentius's sup- 
porter, but as the senior acting Augustus. 

Severus marched straight down the Italian penin- 
sula and laid siege to Rome, only to find himself 
deserted by his soldiers. According to Zosimus, the 
troops which first played him false were a Moorish 
contingent fresh from Africa. Then, when the 
treachery spread, Severus hastily retired on Ra- 
venna, where he could maintain touch with Galerius 
in Illyria, and was there besieged by Maximian and 
Maxentius. Doubtless, if he had waited, Galerius 
would have sent him reinforcements or come in 
person to his assistance, for his own prestige was 
deeply involved in that of Severus. But the latter 
seems to have allowed himself to be enticed out of 
his strong refuge by the plausible overtures of his 
rivals. He set out for Rome, prepared to resign 
the throne on condition of receiving honourable 
treatment, but on reaching a spot named " The 
Three Taverns," on the Appian Road, he was seized 
and thrown into chains. The only consideration he 



6o Constantine 

received from his captors was that they allowed him 
to choose his own way of relieving them of his 
presence. He opened his veins. So gentle a death 
in those violent times was considered " good." * 

This victory over Severus, gained with such as- 
tonishing ease, speaks well for the popularity of 
Maximian with his old soldiers. Galerius prepared 
to avenge the defeat and murder of his friend and 
invaded Italy at the head of a large army. He 
too, like Severus, marched down the peninsula, but 
he got no nearer to Rome than Narnia, sixty miles 
distant. There he halted, despite the fact that no 
opposition was being offered to his advance. Why ? 
The reason is undoubtedly to be found in the at- 
titude of Constantine, who had mobilised his army 
upon the Gallic frontier and was waiting on events. 
There was no love lost between Constantine and 
Galerius. If Constantine crossed the Alps and 
followed down on the track of Galerius, the latter 
would find himself between two fires. Galerius is 
represented by Zosimus as being suspicious of the 
loyalty of his troops ; it is more probable that he 
decided to retreat as soon as he heard that Constan- 
tine had thrown in his lot with Maximian and 
Maxentius. Maximian had been sedulously trying 
to secure alliances for himself and his son. He had 
made overtures to the recluse of Salona. But 
Diocletian had turned a deaf ear. Even if he had 
hankered after power again, he would hardly have 
declared himself in opposition to the ruler of Illyria, 

* Nihil alitid impetravit nisi bonam mortem, — De Mart, Persec, 
c. 26. 



Constantine and His Colleagues 6i 

while he was dwelling within reach of Galerius. 
With Constantine, however, Maximian had better 
success. He gave him his daughter Fausta in mar- 
riage and incited him to attack Galerius, who at once 
drew his troops off into Illyria, after laying waste 
the Transpadane region with fire and sword. 

Some very curious stories are told in connection 
with this expedition of Galerius. Lactantius de- 
clares that he invaded Italy with the intention of 
extinguishing the Senate and butchering the people 
of Rome ; that he found the gates of all the cities 
shut against him ; and discovered that he had not 
brought sufHcient troops with him to attempt a 
siege of the capital. " He had never seen Rome," 
says Lactantius naively, " and thought it was not 
much bigger than the cities with which he was fa- 
miliar." Galerius was, it is true, a rough soldier of 
the camp, but it is ludicrous to suppose that he was 
not fully cognisant of the topography and the for- 
tifications of Rome. Then we are told that some 
of the legions were afflicted with scruples at the 
idea of being called to fight for a father-in-law 
against his son-in-law — as though there were pro- 
hibited degrees in hatreds — and shrank as Roman 
soldiers from the thought of moving to the assault 
of Rome. And, as a finishing touch to this most 
extraordinary canvas, Lactantius paints into it the 
figure of Galerius kneeling at the feet of his soldiers, 
praying them not to betray him, and offering them 
large rewards. We do not recognise Galerius in 
such a guise. Again, an unknown historian, of 
whose work only a, few fragments survive, says that 



62 Constantine 

when Galerius reached Narnia he opened communi- 
cations with Maximian and proposed to treat for 
peace, but that his overtures were contemptuously 
spurned. This does not violate the probabilities 
like the reckless malevolence of Lactantius, but, 
after all, the simplest explanation is the one which 
we have given above. Galerius halted and then 
retired when he heard that Constantine had come to 
an understanding with Maximian, had married his 
daughter, and was waiting and watching on the 
Gallic border. No pursuit seems to have been 
attempted. 

Maximian and Maxentius were thus left in undis- 
puted possession of Italy. They were clearly in 
alliance with Constantine, but their relations with 
one another were exceedingly anomalous. Both are 
represented in equally odious colours. Eutropius 
describes the father as " embittered and brutal, faith- 
less, troublesome, and utterly devoid of good man- 
ners " ; Aurelius Victor says of the son that no one 
ever liked him, not even his own father. Indeed, 
the scandal-mongers of the day denied the parentage 
of Maxentius and said that he was the son of some 
low-born Syrian and had been foisted upon Max- 
imian by his wife as her own child. Pubhc opinion, 
however, was inclined to throw the blame of the 
rupture, which speedily took place between Max- 
imian and Maxentius, upon the older man, who is 
depicted as a restless and mischievous intriguer. 
In Rome, at any rate, the army looked to the son 
as its chief, and as there was but one army, there 
was no room for two Emperors. Lactantius tells 




BUST OF MAXIMIAN AT ROME. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALtNARI. 



Constantine and His Colleagues 63 

the story that Maximian called a great mass meeting 
of citizens and soldiers, dilated at length upon the 
evils of the situation, and then, turning to his son, 
declared that he was the cause of all the trouble and 
snatched the purple from his shoulders. But Max- 
imian had the mortification of seeing Maxentius shel- 
tered instead of slaughtered by the soldiers, and it 
was he himself who was driven with ignominy from 
the city, like a second Tarquin the Proud. 

Whether these circumstantial details are to be ac- 
cepted or not, there is no doubt as to the sequel. 
Maximian was expelled from Rome and Italy, and 
began a series of wanderings which were only to end 
with his death. He seems first of all to have fled 
into Gaul and thrown himself upon the protection of 
his son-in-law, Constantine, and then to have opened 
up negotiations with Galerius, who must naturally 
have desired to establish some modus vivendi be- 
tween all the rival Emperors. Galerius called a 
conference at Carnuntum on the Danube and invited 
the presence of Diocletian. Maximian was there; 
so too was Licinius, an old companion-in-arms of 
Galerius and his most trusted lieutenant. Of the 
debates which took place no word has survived. 
But the fact that Diocletian was invited to attend is 
clear proof that Galerius regarded him with the pro- 
found respect that was due to the senior Augustus 
and the founder of the system which had broken 
down so badly. Galerius wished the old man to 
suggest a way out of the impasse which had been 
reached, to devise some plan whereby his dilapidated 
fabric might still be patched up. Even in his 



64 Constantine 

retirement the practical wisdom of Diocletian was 
gladly recognised, and three years later we find one 
of the Panegyrists sounding his praises in the pre- 
sence of Constantine. This shews that Diocletian 
and Constantine were on friendly terms, else Dio- 
cletian would only have been mentioned with abuse, 
or would have been passed over in significant silence. 
The passage deserves quotation : 

" That divine statesman, who was the first to share his 
Empire with others and the first to lay it down, does not 
regret the step he took, nor thinks that he has lost what 
he voluntarily resigned; nay, he is truly blessed and 
happy, since, even in his retirement, such mighty Princes 
as you offer him the protection of your deep respect. 
He is upheld by a multiplicity of Empires; he rejoices 
in the cover of your shade." * 

Diocletian would not have been called to Carnun- 
tum, or, if called, he would scarcely have undertaken 
so tedious a journey, had there not been affairs of 
the highest moment to be discussed. We know of 
only one certain result of this strange council of Em- 
perors. It is that a new Augustus was created by 
Galerius without passing through the intermediate 
stage of being a Caesar. He was found in Licinius, 
to whom was assigned the administration of Illyria 
with the command of the Danubian legions, and the 
status of second rank in the hierarchy of the Augusti, 
or rather of the Augusti in active life. Galerius, we 
may infer, was sensible of the approaching break- 

* Sed et ille multijugo fulius imperio et vestro Icstus tegitur unt' 
braculo. — Pan. Vet., vii., 15. 



Constantine and His Colleagues 65 

down of his health and wished his friend Licinius to 
be ready to step into his place. Apparently, a genu- 
ine attempt was made to restore to something like 
its old position the system of Diocletian. Perhaps 
as reasonable a supposition as any is that it was 
decided at the conference that Diocletian and Max- 
imian should again be relegated to the ranks of 
retired Augusti, that Galerius and Licinius should 
be the two active Augusti, and Constantine and 
Maximin the two Csesars. Maximian had unques- 
tionably gone to Carnuntum with the hope of fishing 
in troubled waters and Lactantius* even attributes 
to him a wild scheme for assassinating Galerius. It 
is, at any rate, certain that he left the conference in 
a fury of disappointment. The ambitious and rest- 
less old man had received no encouragement to his 
hopes of again being supreme over part of the 
Emp're. 

But what then of Maxentius, who was in possession 
of Italy and Africa ? If the theory we have pro- 
pounded be right, he must have been studiously 
ignored and treated as a usurper, to be thrown out — 
just as Carausius had been — at a favourable oppor- 
tunity. There is a passage in Lactantius which 
seems to corroborate this suggestion. That author 
says that Maximin Daza, the Caesar of Egypt and 
Syria and the old prot6g6 of Galerius, heard with 
anger that Licinius had been promoted over his 
head to be Augustus and hold the second place in 
the charmed circle of Emperors. He sent angry re- 
monstrances ; Galerius returned a soft answer. Max- 

* De Mart. Per sec. , c. 29. 
5 



66 Constantine 

imin assumed an even more aggressive hearing {Ul/ii 
audacius cornua), urged more peremptorily than ever 
his superior right, and spurned Galerius's entreaties 
and commands. Then, — Lactantius goes on to say, 
— overborne by Maximin's stubborn obstinacy, Gal- 
erius offered a compromise, by naming himself and 
Licinius as Augusti and Maximin and Constantine 
as Sons of the Augusti, instead of simple Csesars. 

But Maximin was obdurate and wrote saying that 
his soldiers had taken the law into their own hands 
and had already saluted him as Augustus. Galerius 
therefore, in the face of the accomplished fact, gave 
way and recognised not only Maximin but Constan- 
tine also as full Augusti. Such is the story of Lac- 
tantius. It will be noted that the name of Maxentius 
is not mentioned. He is treated as non-existent. 
There need be no surprise that nothing is said of Dio- 
cletian and Maximian, for they were ex-Augusti, so to 
speak, though still bearing the courtesy title. But 
if Maxentius had been recognised as one of the 
" Imperial Brothers " at the conference of Carnun- 
tum, the omission of his name by Lactantius is ex- 
ceedingly strange. From his account we should 
judge that the policy decided upon at Carnuntum 
was to restore the fourfold system of Diocletian in 
the persons of Galerius, Licinius, Maximin, and Con- 
stantine, taking precedence in the order named. 
When Maximin refused to be content with his old 
title of Caesar or to accept the new one of Son 
of Augustus, and insisted on being acknowledged 
as Augustus, the system broke down anew. At the 
beginning of 308, there were no fewer than seven 



Constantine and His Colleagues 67 

who bore the name of Augustus. And of these 
Diocletian alone had outlived his ambitions. 

Maximian returned to Gaul, where he received 
cordial welcome from Constantine. He had resigned 
his pretensions not— as says Lactantius, cognisant as 
ever of the secret motives of his enemies — that he 
might the more easily deceive Constantine, but be- 
cause it had been so decided at Carnuntum. He 
was thus a private citizen once more ; he had neither 
army, nor ofificial status, nothing beyond the prestige 
attaching to one who had, so to speak, " passed the 
chair." There can be little doubt that his second 
resignation was as reluctant as the first, but as he 
was at open enmity with his son, Maxentius, he had 
only Constantine to look to for protection and the 
means of livelihood. And Constantine, according 
to the author of the Seventh Panegyric, gave him all 
the honours due to his exalted rank. He assigned 
to him the place of honour on his right hand ; put at 
his disposal the stables of the palace ; and ordered 
his servants to pay to Maximian the same deference 
that they paid to himself. The orator declares that 
the gossip of the day spoke of Constantine as wear- 
ing the robe of ofifice, while Maximian wielded its 
powers. Evidently Constantine had no fear that 
Maximian would play him false. 

His confidence, however, soon received a rude 
shock. The Franks were restless and threatened 
invasion. Constantine marched north with his 
army, leaving Maximian at Aries. He did not take 
his entire forces with him, for a considerable number 
remained in the south of Gaul— no doubt to guard 



68 Constantine 

the frontier against danger from Maxentius, though 
Lactantius explains it otherwise. Maximian waited 
till sufficient time had elapsed for Constantine to 
be well across the Rhine, and then began to spread 
rumours of his having been defeated and slain in 
battle. For the third time, therefore, he assumed 
the purple, seized the State treasuries, and took 
command of the legions, offering them a large dona- 
tive, and appealing to their old loyalty. The usurp- 
ation was entirely successful for the moment, but 
when Constantine heard of the treachery he hurried 
back, leaving the affairs of the frontier to settle 
themselves. 

Constantine knew the military value of mobility, 
and his soldiers eagerly made his quarrel their own. 
There is an amusing passage in the Seventh Pane- 
gyric* in which the orator says that the troops 
shewed their devotion by refusing the offer of spe- 
cial travelling-money {viatica) on the ground that it 
would hamper them on the march. Their generous 
pay, they said, was more than sufficient, though no 
Roman army before this time had ever been known 
to refuse money. Then he describes how they 
marched from the Rhine to the Aar without rest, 
yet with unwearied bodies ; how at Chalons (Cabillo- 
num) they were placed on board river boats, but 
found the current too sluggish for their impetuous 
eagerness to come to conclusions with the traitor, 
and cried out that they were standing still ; and 
how, even when they entered the rapid current of 
the Rhone, its pace scarcely satisfied their ardour. 

*C. i8. 



Constantine and His Colleagues 69 

Such, according to the Court rhetorician, was the 
enthusiasm of the soldiers for their young leader. 
When, at length, Aries was reached, it was found 
that Maximian had fled to Marseilles and had shut 
himself up within that strongly fortified town. His 
power had crumbled away. The legions, which had 
sworn allegiance to him, withdrew it again as soon as 
they found that he had lied to them of Constantine's 
death ; even the soldiers he had with him in Mar- 
seilles only waited for the appearance of Constan- 
tine before the walls to open the gates. The picture 
which Lactantius draws of Constantine reproaching 
Maximian for his ingratitude while the latter — from 
the summit of the wall — heaps curses on his head 
{ingerebat maledicta de muris), or the companion 
picture of the anonymous rhetorician, who shews us 
the scaling ladders falling short of the top of the 
battlements and the devoted soldiers climbing up on 
their comrades' backs, are vivid but unconvincing. 
What emerges from their doubtful narratives is that 
Marseilles was captured without a siege, and that 
Maximian fell into the hands of his justly angry 
son-in-law, who stripped him of his titles but vouch- 
safed to him his life. 

Was Maximian in league with his son, Maxentius, 
in this usurpation ? Had they made up their old 
quarrel in order to turn their united weapons 
against Constantine ? There were those who 
thought so at the time, as Lactantius says, * the 
theory being that the old man only pretended 
violent enmity towards his son in order to carry out 

*De Mort. Per sec, c, 43. 



70 Constantine 

his treacherous designs against Constantine and the 
other Emperors. 

Lactantius himself denies this supposition bluntly 
{Sed id falsiim fuif) and then goes on to say* that 
Maximian's real motive was to get rid both of 
Maxentius and the rest, and restore Diocletian and 
himself to power. Even for Lactantius, this is an 
extraordinarily wild theory. It runs counter to all 
that we know of Diocletian's wishes during his 
retirement, and it speaks of the " extinction of 
Maxentius and the rest " as though it only needed 
an order to a centurion and the deed was done. It 
is much more probable that Maximian had actually 
re-entered into negotiations with Maxentius and 
had offered, as the price of reconciliation, the sup- 
port of the legions which he had treacherously won 
from Constantine. The impetuous haste with which 
Constantine flew back from the Rhine indicates 
that the crisis was one of extreme gravity. 

Maximian did not long survive his degradation. 
That he died a violent death is certain ; the circum- 
stances attending it are in doubt. Lactantius gives 
a minute narrative which would carry greater con- 
viction if the details had not been so manifestly 
borrowed from the chronicles of the East. He says 
that Maximian, tiring of his humiliating position, 
engaged in new plots against Constantine, and 
tempted Fausta, his daughter, to betray her hus- 
band by the promise of a worthier spouse. Her 
part in the conspiracy was to secure the removal of 



* Nam id propositi habebat, ut et Jilio et ceteris extinctis se ac Dio- 
cletianum restitueret in re?nu7n. 




FRAGMENT OF 4TH CENTURY EGYPTIAN POTTERY BOWL 

SHOWING AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF CHRIST, WITH BUSTS OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE 
AND THE EMPRESS FAUSTA. (fROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM.) 



Constantine and His Colleagues 71 

the guards from Constantine's sleeping apartment. 
Fausta laid the whole scheme before her husband, 
who ordered one of his eunuchs to sleep in the royal 
chamber. Maximian, rising in the dead of night, 
told the sentries that he had dreamed an important 
dream which he wished at once to communicate to 
his son-in-law and thus gained entrance to the room. 
Drawing his sword, he cut off the eunuch's head 
and rushed out boasting that he had slain Con- 
stantine — only to be confronted by Constantine him- 
self at the head of a troop of armed men. The 
corpse was brought out ; the self-convicted mur- 
derer stood " speechless as Marpesian flint." Con- 
stantine upbraided him with his treachery, gave him 
permission to choose his own mode of dying, and 
Maximian hanged himself, " drawing " — as Virgil 
had said — " from the lofty beam the noose of 
shameful death." 

Such is the story of Lactantius ; it could scarcely 
be more circumstantial. But if this had been the 
manner of Maximian's death, it is hardly possible 
that the other historians would have passed it by 
in silence. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, 
simply says that Maximian strangled himself ; Au- 
relius Victor that he justly perished {Jure per ier at). 
The author of the Seventh Panegyric declares that, 
though Constantine offered him his life, Maximian 
deemed himself unworthy of the boon and com- 
, mitted suicide.* Eutropius, evidently borrowing 
from Lactantius, remarks that Maximian paid the 

*Nec se digmim vita judicavit, cum per te liceret ut viveret. — Pan. 
Vet., vii., 20. 



72 



Constantine 



penalty for his crimes. There is little doubt, there- 
fore, that Constantine ordered his execution and 
gave him choice of death, just as Maxentius had 
given similar choice to Severus. Officially it would 
be announced that Maximian had committed sui- 
cide. At the time, public opinion was shocked by 
the manner of his death, though it was generally 
conceded that his life was justly forfeit. 




CHAPTER V 

THE INVASION OF ITALY 

THE tragic end of his old colleague must have 
raised many disquieting thoughts in the mind 
of Diocletian, already beginning to be anxious lest 
his successors should think that he was living too 
long. While Galerius flourished he was sure of a 
protector, but Galerius died in 311. In the eigh- 
teenth year of his rule he had been stricken with 
an incurable and loathsome malady, into the de- 
tails of which Lactantius enters with a morbid but 
lively enjoyment, affecting to see in the torture 
of the dying Emperor the visitation of an angry 
Providence. He describes minutely the progress 
of the cancer and the " appalling odour of the fes- 
tering wound which spread not only through the 
palace but through the city." He shews us the 
unhappy patient raising piercing cries and calling 
for mercy from the God of the Christians whom he 
had persecuted, vowing under the stress of physi- 
cal anguish that he would make reparation ; and, 
finally, when at the very point of death {^jain 
deficiens), dictating the edict which stayed the per- 
secution and gave the Christians full liberty to 

73 



74 Constantine 

worship in their own way. It will be more con- 
venient to discuss in another place this remarkable 
document, the forerunner, so to speak, of the 
famous Edict of Milan. It was promulgated at 
Nicomedia on the thirtieth of April, 311, and a 
few days later Galerius's torments were mercifully 
ended by death. 

The death of Galerius gave another blow to the 
already tottering system of Diocletian. It had been 
his intention to retire, as Diocletian had done, at 
the end of his twentieth year of sovereignty, and 
make way for a younger man, and there can. be 
little doubt that he would have been as good as his 
word. Galerius has not received fair treatment at 
the hands of posterity. Lactantius, his bitter enemy, 
describes him as a violent rufifian and a hectoring 
bully, an object of terror and fear to all around 
him in word, deed, and aspect. Lactantius belittles 
the importance of his victory over Narses, the 
Persian King, by saying that the Persian army 
marched encumbered with baggage and that victory 
was easily won. He makes Galerius the leading 
spirit of the Persecution ; represents him as having 
goaded Diocletian into signing the fatal edicts ; 
accuses him of having fired the palace at Nicomedia 
in order to work on the terrors of his chief ; charges 
him with having invented new and horrible tortures; 
and declares that he never dined or supped without 
whetting his appetite with the sight of human blood. 
No one would gather from Lactantius that Galerius 
was a fine soldier, a hard-working and capable 
Emperor, and a loyal successor to a great political 



The Invasion of Italy 75 

chief. Eutropius does him no more than justice 
when he describes him as a man of high principle 
and a consummate general.* Aurelius Victor fills in 
the hght and shade. Galerius was, he says, a Prince 
worthy of all praise ; just if unpolished and un- 
tutored ; of handsome presence ; and an accom- 
plished and fortunate general. He had risen from 
the ranks ; in his young days he had been a herd 
boy, and the name of Ai'mentarius clung to him 
through life. This rough and ready Pannonian 
spent too energetic and busy a career to have time 
for culture. He came from a province where, in the 
forceful phrase of one of the Panegyrists, " hfe was 
all hard knocks and fighting." f 

Galerius had already nominated Licinius as his 
successor, but Licinius was far away in Pannonia 
and did not cross over at once into Asia to take 
command of Galerius's army — no doubt because it 
was not safe for him to leave his post. In the 
meantime, Maximin Daza, the Augustus of Syria 
and Egypt, had been preparing to march on Nico- 
media as soon as Galerius breathed his last, for he 
claimed, as we have seen, that by seniority of rule 
he had a better right than Licinius to the title 
of senior Augustus. While, therefore, Licinius re- 
mained in Europe, Maximin Daza advanced from 
Syria across the Taurus and entered Bithynia, 
where, to curry favour with the people, he abolished 
the census. It was expected that the two Emperors 



* Vir et probe nioratus et egregius re militari. 
f In quibus oninis vita militia est. 



"j^ Constantlne 

would fight out their quarrel, but an accommoda- 
tion was arrived at, and they agreed that the Hel- 
lespont should form the boundary between them. 
Maximin, by his promptitude, had thus materially 
increased his sovereignty, and, at the beginning of 
312, the eastern half of the Empire was divided 
between Licinius and Maximin Daza, while Con- 
stantine ruled in Great Britain, Spain, and Gaul, and 
Maxentius was master of Italy and Africa. 

Whether or not his position had been recognised 
by the other Emperors at the conference of Carnun- 
tum, Maxentius had remained in undisturbed posses- 
sion of Italy since the hurried retreat of the invading 
army of Galerius. In Africa, indeed, a general named 
Alexander, who, according to Zosimus, was a Phry- 
gian by descent, and timid and advanced in years, 
raised the standard of revolt. Maxentius commis- 
sioned one of his lieutenants to attack the usurper 
and Alexander was captured and strangled. There 
would have been nothing to distinguish this insur- 
rection from any other, had it not been for the ruth- 
less severity with which the African cities were 
treated by the conqueror. Carthage and Cirta were 
pillaged and sacked; the countryside was laid deso- 
late ; many of the leading citizens were executed ; 
still more were reduced to beggary. The ruin of 
Africa was so complete that it excited against Max- 
entius the public opinion of the Roman world. He 
had begun his reign, as will be remembered, as the 
special champion of the Praetorians and of the priv- 
ileges of Rome, but he soon lost his early popularity, 
and rapidly developed into a cruel and bloodthirsty 



The Invasion of Italy "J1 

tyrant. His profligacy was shameless and excessive, 
even for those licentious times. Eusebius tells the 
story of how Sophronia, the Christian wife of the 
city praefect, stabbed herself in order to escape his 
embraces, when the imperial messengers came to 
summon her to the palace. 

If Maxentius had been accused of all the vices only 
on the authority of the Christian authors and the 
official panegyrists of Constantine, their statements 
might have been received with some suspicion — for 
a fallen Roman Emperor had no friends. Zosimus, 
however, is almost as severe upon him as Lactantius, 
and Julian, in the Banquet of the Ccesars, excludes 
him from the feast as one utterly unworthy of a 
place in honourable society. According to Aurelius 
Victor, he was the first to start the practice of exact- 
ing from the senators large sums of money in the 
guise of free gifts {munerum specie) on the flimsiest 
pretexts of public necessity, or as payment for the 
bestowal of office or civil distinction. Moreover, 
knowing that, sooner or later, he would find himself 
at war with one or other of his brother Augusti, 
Maxentius amassed great stores of corn and wealth 
and took no heed of a morrow which he knew that 
he might not live to witness. He despoiled the 
temples, — says the author of the Ninth Panegyric, — 
butchered the Senate, and starved the people of 
Rome. The Praetorians — who had placed and kept 
him on the throne — ruled the city. Zosimus tells 
the curious story of how, in the course of a great fire 
in Rome, the Temple of Fortune was burned down 
and one of the soldiers looking on spoke blasphemous 



78 Constantine 

and disrespectful words of the goddess. Immedi- 
ately the mob attacked him. His comrades went to 
his assistance and a serious riot ensued, during which 
the Praetorians would have massacred the citizens 
had they not been with difficulty restrained. All 
the authorities, indeed, agree that a perfect reign of 
terror prevailed at Rome after Maxentius's victory 
over Alexander in Africa, while Maxentius himself is 
depicted as a second Commodus or Nero. 

One of the most vivid pictures of the tyrant is 
given in the Panegyric already quoted. The orator 
speaks of Maxentius as a " stupid and worthless 
wild-beast " {stultum et nequam animal^ skulking for 
ever within the walls of the palace and not daring to 
leave the precincts. Fancy, he exclaims, an indoor 
Emperor, who considers that he has made a journey 
and achieved an expedition if he has so much as vis- 
ited the Gardens of Sallust ! Whenever he addressed 
his soldiers, he would boast that, though he had col- 
leagues in the Empire, he alone was the real Em- 
peror ; for he ruled while they kept the frontiers 
safe and did his fighting for him. And then he 
would dismiss them with the three words: '^ Frzii- 
mini / Dissipate! Prodigite ! " Such an invitation 
to drunkenness, riot, and debauch would not be un- 
welcome to the swaggering Praetorians and to the 
numerous bands of mercenaries which Maxentius 
had collected from all parts of the world. 

We ought not, perhaps, to take this scathing in- 
vective quite literally. For all his vices, Maxentius 
was probably not quite the hopeless debauchee he 
is represented to have been. It is at least worth 



The Invasion of Italy 79 

remark that it was this Emperor, of whom no one has 
a charitable word to say, who restored to the Christ- 
ians at Rome the church buildings and property 
which had been confiscated to the State by the 
edicts of Diocletian and Galerius. Neither Eusebius 
nor Lactantius mentions this, but the fact is clear 
from a passage in St. Augustine, who says that the 
first act of the Roman Christians on regaining pos- 
session of their cemetery was to bring back the body 
of Bishop Eusebius, who had died in exile in Sicily. 
Nor did Maxentius's political attitude towards the 
other Augusti betray indications of incompetence or 
want of will. He was ambitious — a trait common 
to most Roman Emperors and certainly shared by 
all his colleagues. There was no cohesion among 
the four Augusti ; there was no one much superior 
to the others in influence and prestige. Constan- 
tine and Maxentius feared and suspected each other 
in the West, just as Licinius and Maximin Daza 
feared and suspected each other in the East. When 
the two latter agreed that the Hellespont should di- 
vide their territories, Licinius, who had lost Asia 
Minor by the bargain, made overtures of alliance to 
Constantine. It was arranged that Licinius should 
marry Constantia, the sister of the Augustus of 
Gaul. Naturally, therefore, Maximin Daza turned 
towards Maxentius and sent envoys asking for alli- 
ance and friendship. Lactantius adds the curious 
phrase that Maximin 's letter was couched in a tone 
of familiarity * and says that Maxentius was as eager 



* Scribit etiam familiariter . 



8o Constantine 

to accept as Maximin had been to offer. He hailed 
it, we are told, as a god-sent help, for he had already 
declared war against Constantine on the pretext of 
avenging his father's murder. 

The outbreak of this war, which was fraught with 
such momentous consequences to the whole course 
of civilisation, found the Empire strangely divided. 
The Emperor of Italy and Africa was allied with the 
Emperor of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, against 
the rulers of the armies of the Danube and the 
Rhine. We shall see that the alliance was — at any 
rate, in result — defensive rather than offensive. 
Licinius and Maximin never moved ; they simply 
neutralised one another, though the advantage clearly 
lay with Constantine and Licinius, for Maxentius 
was absolutely isolated, so far as receiving help on 
the landward side was concerned. We need not 
look far to find the real cause of quarrel between 
Constantine and Maxentius, whatever pretexts were 
assigned. Maxentius would never have risked his 
Empire for the sake of a father whom he detested ; 
nor would Constantine have jeopardised his throne 
in order to avenge an insult. Each aspired to rule 
over the entire West ; neither would acquiesce in 
the pretensions of the other. Both had been actively 
preparing for a struggle which becarhe inevitable 
when neither took any radical steps to avoid it. 
We have already seen that Constantine kept the 
larger part of the army of Gaul stationed in the 
south near Arelate and Lugdunum, in order to 
watch the Alpine passes ; we shall find that Maxen- 
tius had also posted his main armies in the north 



The Invasion of Italy 8i 

of Italy from Susa on the one side, where he was 
threatened by Constantine, to Venice on the other, 
where he was on guard against Licinius. There is 
a curious reference in one of the authorities to a 
plan formed by Maxentius of invading Gaul through 
Rhaetia, — no doubt because Constantine had made 
the Alpine passes practically unassailable, — while 
Lactantius tells us that he had drawn every avail- 
able man from Africa to swell his armies in Italy. 

Constantine acted with the extreme rapidity for 
which he was already famous. He hurried his army 
down from the Rhine, and was through the passes 
and attacking the walled city of Susa before Max- 
entius had certain knowledge of his movements. 
That he was embarking on an exceedingly hazardous 
expedition seems to have been recognised by him- 
self and his captains. The author of the Ninth 
Panegyric says quite bluntly that his principal ofiti- 
cers not only muttered their fears in secret, but ex- 
pressed them openly,"* and adds that his councillors 
and haruspices warned him to desist. A similar 
campaign had cost Severus his life and had been 
found too hazardous even by Galerius. Superiority 
of numbers lay not with him, but with his rival. 
Constantine was gravely handicapped by the fact 
that he had to safeguard the Rhine behind him 
against the Germanic tribes, which he knew would 
seize the first opportunity to pass the river. Zosi- 
mus gives a detailed account f of the numbers 



* Non solum tacite mussantibus sed eteiam aperte timentibus. 

Pan. Vet., ix., 2. 

•j- Zosimus, ii., 15. 
6 



82 Constantine 

which the rivals placed in the field. Maxentius, he 
says, had 170,000 foiOt and 18,000 horse under his 
command, including 80,000 levies from Rome and 
Italy, and 40,000 from Carthage and Africa. Con- 
stantine, on the other hand, even after vigorous re- 
cruiting in Britain and Gaul, could only muster 
90,000 foot and 8000 horse. The author of the 
Ninth Panegyric, in a casual phrase, says that Con- 
stantine could hardly employ a fourth of his Gallic 
army against the 100,000 men in the ranks of Max- 
entius, on account of the dangers of the Rhine. 
Ancient authorities, however, are never trustworthy 
where numbers are concerned ; we only know that 
Maxentius had by far the larger force, and that 
Constantine's army of invasion was probably under 
40,000 strong. Whether the numerical supremacy 
of the former was not counterbalanced by the neces- 
sity under which Maxentius laboured of guarding 
against Licinius, is a question to which the histori- 
ans have paid no heed. 

Marching along the chief military highroad from 
Lugdunum to Italy, which crossed the Alps at Mont 
Cenis, Constantine suddenly appeared before the 
walls of Susa, a strongly garrisoned post, and took 
it by storm, escalading the walls and burning the 
gates. The town caught fire ; Constantine set his 
soldiers to put out the flames, a more difficult task, 
says Nazarius, than had been the actual assault. 
From Susa the victor advanced to Turin, which 
opened its gates to him after the cavalry of Max- 
entius had been routed in the plains. These were 
troops clad in ponderous but cleverly jointed ar- 



The Invasion of Italy 83 

mour, and the weight of their onslaught was calcu- 
lated to crush either horse or foot upon which it 
was directed. But Constantine disposed his forces 
so as to avoid their charge and render their weight 
useless, and when these horsemen fled for shelter to 
Turin they found the gates closed against them and 
perished almost to a man. Milan, by far the most 
important city in the Transpadane region, next re- 
ceived Constantine, who entered amid the plaudits 
of the citizens, and charmed the eyes of the Milan- 
ese ladies, says the Panegyrist, without causing them 
anxieties for their virtue. Milan, indeed, welcomed 
him with open arms ; other cities sent deputations 
similar to the one which, according to the epitomist 
Zonaras, had already reached him from Rome itself, 
praying him to come as its liberator. It seemed, 
indeed, that he had already won not only the Trans- 
padane region, but Rome itself.* 

Constantine, however, had still to meet and over- 
throw the chief armies of Maxentius in the north of 
Italy. These were under the command of Ruricius 
Pompeianus, a general as stubborn as he was loyal, 
and of well-tried capacity. Pompeianus held Verona 
in force. He had thrown out a large body of cavalry 
towards Brescia to reconnoitre and check Constan- 
tine's advance, but these were routed with some 
slaughter and retired in confusion. If we may in- 
terpret the presence of Pompeianus at Verona as 
indicating that Maxentius had feared attack by 
Licinius more than by Constantine, this would 

* Pan. Vet., ix., 7. 



84 Constantine 

explain the comparative absence of troops in Lom- 
bardy and the concentration in Venetia, though it is 
strange that we do not hear of Licinius taking any 
steps to assist his ally. Verona was a strongly forti- 
fied city resting upon the Adige, which encircled its 
walls for three-quarters of their circumference. Con- 
stantine managed to effect a crossing at some 
distance from the city and laid siege in regular 
fashion. Pompeianus tried several ineffectual sor- 
ties, and then, secretly escaping through the lines, 
he brought up the rest of his army to offer pitched 
battle or compel Constantine to raise the siege. A 
fierce engagement followed. We are told* that 
Constantine had drawn up his men in double lines, 
when, noticing that the enemy outnumbered him 
and threatened to overlap either flank, he ordered 
his troops to extend and present a wider front. He 
distinguished himself that day by pressing into the 
thickest of the fight, " like a mountain torrent in 
spate that tears away by their roots the trees on its 
banks and rolls down rocks and stones." The orator 
depicts for us the scene as Constantine's lieutenants 
and captains receive him on his return from the fray, 
panting with his exertion and with blood dripping 
from his hands. With tears in their eyes, they chide 
him for his rashness in imperilling the hopes of the 
world. " It does not beseem an Emperor," they 
say, " to strike down an enemy with his own 
sword. It does not become him to sweat with the 
toil of battle.f " In simpler language, Constantine 
fought bravely at the head of his men and won the 
* Pan. Vet., ix., 9. f Immo non decet laborare. 



The Invasion of Italy 85 

day. Pompeianus was slain; Verona opened her 
gates, and so many prisoners fell into the hands of 
the conqueror that Constantine made his armourers 
forge chains and manacles from the iron of the cap- 
tives' swords. In accordance with his usual policy, 
he concihated the favour of those whom he had de- 
feated by sparing the city from pillage, and shewed 
an equal clemency to Aquileia and the other cities 
of Venetia, all of which speedily submitted on the 
capitulation of Verona. 

With the entire north of Italy thus wrested from 
Maxentius, Constantine could turn his face towards 
Rome. He encountered no opposition on the march. 
Maxentius did not even contest the passage oi the 
Apennines ; the Umbrian passes were left open ; and 
if the historians are to be trusted— and they speak 
with unanimity on the point— the Itahan Emperor 
simply waited for his doom to come upon him, as 
Nero had done, and made no really serious effort to 
defend his throne. This slave in the purple {vernula 
purpuratus), as the author of the Ninth Panegyric 
calls him, cowered trembling in his palace, paralysed 
with fear because he had been deserted by the Di- 
vine Intelligence and the Eternal Majesty of Rome, 
which had transferred themselves from the tyrant 
to the side of his rival. We are told, indeed, that a 
few days before the appearance of Constantine, Max- 
entius quitted the palace with his wife and son and 
took up his abode in a private house, not being able 
to endure the terrible dreams that came to him by 
night and the spectres of the victims which haunted 
his crime-stained halls. Constantine moved swiftly 



86 Constantine 

down from the north of Italy along the Flaminian 
Way, and in less than two months after the fall of 
Verona, he was at Saxa Rubra, only nine miles from 
Rome, with an army eager for battle and confident 
of victory. There he found the troops of Maxentius 
drawn up in battle array, but posted in a position 
which none but a fool or a madman would have se- 
lected. The probabilities are that Maxentius could 
not trust the citizens of Rome and therefore dared 
hot stand a siege within the ramparts of Aurelian. 
Then, having decided to offer battle, he allowed his 
army to cross the Tiber and take up ground whence, 
if defeated, their only roads of escape lay over tTie 
narrow Milvian Bridge and a flimsy bridge of boats, 
one probably on either flank. 

It is said that Maxentius had not intended to be 
present in person when the issue was decided. He 
was holding festival within the city, celebrating his 
birthday with the usual games and pretending that 
the proximity of Constantine caused him no alarm. 
The populace began to taunt him with cowardice, 
and uttered the ominous shout that Constantine was 
invincible. Maxentius's fears grew as the clamour 
swelled in volume. He hurriedly called for the 
Sibylline Books and ordered them to be consulted. 
These gave answer that on that very day the enemy 
of the Romans should perish — a characteristically 
safe reply. Such ambiguity of diction had usually 
portended the death of the consulting Prince, but 
Lactantius says that the hopes with which the 
words inspired Maxentius led him to put on his 
armour and ride out of Rome. 



The Invasion of Italy 87 

The issue was decided at the first encounter. 
Constantine charged at the head of his GalHc horse 
— now accustomed to and certain of victory — into 
the cavalry of Maxentius, which broke and ran 
in disorder from the field. Only the Praetorians 
made a gallant and stubborn resistance and fell 
where they had stood, knowing that it was they 
who had raised Maxentius to the throne and that 
their destruction was involved in his. While these 
fought valiantly with the courage of despair, their 
comrades were crowding in panic towards the al- 
ready choked bridges. At the Milvian Bridge the 
passage was jammed, and the pursuers wrought great 
execution. The pontoon bridge collapsed, owing to 
the treachery of those who had cut or loosened its 
supports. All the reports agree that there was a 
sickening slaughter, and that hundreds were drowned 
in the Tiber in their vain effort to escape. Among 
the victims was Maxentius himself. He was either 
thrust into the river by the press of frenzied fugi- 
tives or was drowned in trying to scale the high 
bank on the opposite shore, when weighed down by 
his heavy armour. His corpse was recovered later 
from the stream, which the Panegyrists hailed in 
ecstatic terms as the co-saviour of Rome with Con- 
stantine and the partner of his triumph.* 

The victor entered Rome. He had won the prize 
which he sought — the mastery of the West— and, 
like scores of Roman conquerors before him, he 
marched through the famous streets. His tri- 

* Pan. Vet., ix., i8. 



88 Constantine 

umphal procession was graced, says Nazarius, not 
by captive chiefs or barbarians in chains, but by 
senators who now tasted the joy of freedom again, 
and by consulars whose prison doors had been 
opened by Constantine's victory — in a word, by a 
Free Rome. * Only the head of Maxentius, whose 
features still wore the savage, threatening look which 
even death itself had not been able to obliterate, 
was carried on the point of a spear behind Constan- 
tine amid the jeers and insults of the crowd. An- 
other Panegyrist gives us a very lively picture of the 
throngs as they waited for the Emperor to pass, 
describing how they crowded at the rear of the pro- 
cession and swept up to the palace, almost venturing 
to cross the sacred threshold itself, and how, when 
Constantine appeared in the streets on the succeed- 
ing days, they sought to unhorse his carriage and 
draw it along with their hands. One of the con- 
queror's first acts was to extirpate the family of his 
fallen rival. Maxentius's elder son, Romulus, who 
for a short time had borne the name of Caesar, was 
already dead ; the younger son, and probably the wife 
too, were now quietly removed. There were other 
victims, who had committed themselves too deeply to 
Maxentius' fortunes to escape. Rome, says Naza- 
rius,f was reconstituted afresh on a lasting basis by 
the complete destruction of those who might have 
given trouble. But still the victims were compara- 
tively few, so few, in the estimation of public opinion, 
that the victory was regarded as a bloodless one, and 

* Pan. Vet., x., 31. f Ibid., x., 6. 



The Invasion of Italy 89 

Constantine's clemency was the theme and admira- 
tion of all. When the people clamoured for more 
victims — doubtless the most hated instruments of 
Maxentius's tyranny — and when the informer pressed 
forward to offer his deadly services, Constantine re- 
fused to listen. He was resolved to let bygones be 
bygones. The laws of the period immediately suc- 
ceeding his victory, as they appear in the Theodosian 
Code, amply confirm what might otherwise be the 
suspect eulogies of the Panegyrists. A general act 
of amnesty was passed, and the ghastly head of 
Maxentius was sent to Africa to allay the terrors of 
the population and convince them that their op- 
pressor would trouble them no more. There, it is 
to be supposed, it found a final burial-place. 

Another early act of Constantine was to disband 
the Praetorians, thus carrying out the intention and 
decrees of Galerius. The survivors of these long- 
famous regiments were marched out of Rome away 
from the Circus, the Theatre of Pompeius, and the 
Baths, and were set to do their share in the guarding 
of the Rhine and the Danube. Whether they bore 
the change as voluntarily as the Panegyrist suggests * 
is doubtful, and we may question whether they so 
soon forgot in their rude cantonments the fleshpots 
and " delicicB " of the capital. But the expulsion was 
final. The Praetorians ceased to exist. Rome may 
have been glad to see the empty barracks, for the 
Praetorians had been hated and feared. But the 
vacant quarters also spoke eloquently of the fact 

* Pan. Vet., ix., 21. 



90 Constantine 

that Rome was no longer the mistress of the world. 
The " doinina gentium^' the " regina terrarum," with- 
out her Praetorians, was a thing unthinkable. 

Constantine only stayed two months in Rome, 
but in that short time, says Nazarius, he cured all 
the maladies which the six years' savage tyranny of 
Maxentius had brought upon the city. He restored 
to their confiscated estates all who had been exiled 
or deprived of their property during the recent reign 
of terror. He shewed himself easy of approach ; his 
ears were the most patient of listeners ; he charmed 
all by his kindliness, dignity, and good humour. 
To the Senate he shewed unwonted deference. 
Diocletian, during his solitary visit to Rome just 
prior to his retirement, had treated the senators 
with brusqueness, and hardly concealed his contempt 
for their mouldy dignities. Constantine preferred to 
conciliate them. According to Nazarius, he invested 
with senatorial rank a number of representative pro- 
vincials, so that the Senate once more became a 
dignified body in reality as well as in name, now 
that it consisted of the flower of the whole world. * 
Probably this signifies little more than that Constan- 
tine filled up the vacancies with respectable nom- 
inees, spoke the Senate fair, and swore to maintain 
its ancient rights and privileges. The Emperor 
certainly entertained no such quixotic idea as that 
of giving the Senate a vestige of real governing 
power or a share in the administration of the Em- 
pire. In return for his consideration, the Senate 



* Cum ex totius orbis Jlore constaret. 



The Invasion of Italy 91 

bestowed upon him the title of Senior Augustus, 
and a golden statue, adorned, according to the Ninth 
Panegyrist (c. 25), with the attributes of a god, while 
all Italy subscribed for the shield and the crown. 

The Senate also instituted games and festivals in 
honour of Constantine's victory, and voted him the 
triumphal arch which still survives as one of the 
most imposing ruins of Imperial Rome and a last- 
ing monument to the outrageous vandalism which 
stripped the Arch of Titus of its sculptures to grace 
the memorial of his successor. Under the central arch 
on the one side is the dedication, "To the Liberator 
of the City," on the other, "To the Founder of 
Our Repose " {Fundatori qiiietis). Above stands the 
famous inscription* in which the Senate and people 
of Rome dedicate this triumphal arch to Constan- 
tine " because, at the suggestion of the divinity 
{instinctu divinitatis), and at the prompting of his 
own magnanimity, he and his army had vindicated 
the Republic by striking down the tyrant and all his 
satellites at a single blow." " At the suggestion of 
the divinity ! " The words lead us naturally to dis- 
cuss the conversion of Constantine and the Vision of 
the Cross. 



* The inscription on the Arch of Constantine runs as follows ; 
" Imp. CcEs. Fl. Constantino Maximo 
P. F. Augusta S. P. Q. P. 
Quod instinctu divinitatis mentis 

Magnitudine cum exercitu suo 
Tarn de tyranno quam de omni ejus 

Factione uno tempore justis 
Rempublicam ultus est armis 

Arcum triumphis insignem dicavit" 



CHAPTER VI 

THE VISION OF THE CROSS AND THE EDICT OF 
MILAN 



IT was during the course of the successful invasion 
of Italy, which culminated in the battle of the 
Milvian Bridge and the capture of Rome, that there 
took place — or was said to have taken place — 
the famous vision of the cross, surrounded by the 
words, "Conquer by This," which accompanied the 
triumph of Constantine's arms. There are two main 
authorities for the legend, Eusebius and Lactantius, 
both, of course. Christians and uncompromising 
champions of Constantine, with whom they were in 
close personal contact. A third, though he makes 
no mention of the cross, is Nazarius, the author of 
the Tenth Panegyric. The variations which subse- 
quent writers introduce into the story relate merely 
to details, or are obvious embroideries upon an 
original legend, such, for example, as the statement 
of Philostorgius that the words of promise around 
the cross were written in stars. We need not 
trouble, therefore, with the much later versions of 
Sozomen, Socrates, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Nice- 
phorus ; it will be enough to study the more or less 

92 



The Vision of the Cross 93 

contemporary statements of Eusebius, Lactantius, 
and Nazarius. And of these by far the fullest and 
most important is that of Eusebius, Bishop of Caes- 
area, who explicitly declares that he is repeating 
the story as it was told to him by Constantine 
himself. 

Eusebius shews us the Emperor of Gaul anxiously 
debating within his own mind whether his forces 
were equal to the dangerous enterprise upon which 
he had embarked. Maxentius had a formidable 
army. He had also laboured to bring over to his 
side the powers of heaven and hell. Constantine's 
information from Rome apprised him that Maxen- 
tius was assiduously employing all the black arts of 
magic and wizardry to gain the favour of the gods. 
And Constantine grew uneasy and apprehensive, for 
no one then disbelieved in the efficacy of magic, and 
he considered whether he might not counterbalance 
this undue advantage which Maxentius was obtain- 
ing by securing the protecting services of some 
equally potent deity. Such is the only possible 
meaning of Eusebius's words, svvoei dfjra ortoiov 
deoi deov iniypdtpaGdai fiot) Qov — words which seem 
strange in the twentieth century, but were natural 
enough in the fourth. " He thought in his own 
mind what sort of god he ought to secure as ally." 
And then, says his biographer, the idea occurred to 
him that though his predecessors in the purple had 
believed in a multiplicity of gods, the great majority 
of them had perished miserably. The gods, at 
whose altars they had offered rich sacrifice and 
plenteous libation, had deserted them in their hour 



94 Constantine 

of trouble, and had looked on unmoved while they 
and their families were exterminated from off the 
face of the earth, leaving scarcely so much as a 
name or a recollection behind them. The gods had 
cheated them and lured them to their doom with 
suave promises of treacherous oracles. Whereas, on 
the other hand, his father, Constantius, had believed 
in but one god, and had marvellously prospered 
throughout his life, helped and protected by this 
single deity who had showered every blessing upon 
his head. From such a contrast, what other deduc- 
tion could be drawn than that the god of Constan- 
tius was the deity for Constantius's son to honour? 
Constantine resolved that it would be folly to waste 
time or thought upon deities who were of no account 
{nspi rov5 juj^Sev ovras dsov?). He would worship 
no other god than the god of his father. 

Such, according to Eusebius, is the first phase of 
the Emperor's conversion, a conviction not of sin, 
but of the folly of worshipping gods who cannot or 
will not do anything for their votaries. But this 
god of his father, this single unnamed divinity, who 
was it ? Was it one of the gods of the Roman Pan- 
theon, Jupiter, or Apollo, or Hercules, whose special 
protection Constantine had claimed for himself, as 
Augustus had claimed that of Apollo, and Diocle- 
tian that of Jupiter? Or was it the vague spirit of 
deity itself, the to deior of the Greek philosophers, 
the divinitas of the cultured Roman, whose delicacy 
was offended by the grossness of the exceedingly 
human passions of the Roman gods and goddesses? 
Obviously, it must be the latter, and Eusebius tells 



The Vision of the Cross 95 

us that Constantine offered up a prayer to this god 
of his father, beseeching him," to declare himself who 
he was," and to stretch forth his right hand to help. 
"To declare himself who he was!" (^qjrjvai avro) 
iavror offrts siif). That had ever been the stum- 
bling-block in the way of the acceptance by the 
masses of the immaterial principles propounded by 
the philosophers. Constantine must have a god with 
a name, and he must have a sign from heaven in 
visible proof. Many have asked for such a sign 
just as importunately {\ntap(S)i iHsrsvovti) as Con- 
stantine, but without success. To him it was 
vouchsafed. 

The answer came one afternoon, when the sun 
had just passed its zenith and was beginning to de- 
cline. Lifting his eyes, the Emperor saw in the 
heavens just above the sun the figure of a cross, a 
cross of radiant light, and attached to it was the in- 
scription, " Conquer by This " {rovrcp viko). Euse- 
bius admits that if any one else had told the story it 
would not have been easy to believe it, but it was told 
to him by the Emperor himself, who had confirmed 
his words with a royal oath. How then was it pos- 
sible to doubt ? Constantine was awe-struck at the 
vision, which Eusebius expressly declares was seen 
also by the entire army. All that afternoon the 
Emperor pondered long upon the significance of 
the words, and night fell while he was still asking 
himself what they could mean. Then, as he slept, 
Christ appeared to him in a dream, bearing with 
Him the sign that had flamed in the sky, and bade 
the sleeper make a copy of it and use it as a talis- 



g6 Constantine 

man whenever he gave battle. As soon as dawn 
broke, Constantine summoned his friends and told 
them of the message he had received. Workers in 
gold and precious stones were hastily sent for, and, 
sitting in the midst of them, Constantine carefully 
described the outline of the vision and bade them 
execute a replica of it in their most precious mate- 
rials. This was the famous Labarum, fashioned 
from a long gilded spear and a transverse bar. 
Above was a crown of gold, with jewels encircling 
the monogram of Christ, and from the bar depended 
a rich purple cloth, heavily embroidered with gold, 
blazing with jewels, and bearing the busts of Con- 
stantine and his sons. It suggested the Cross just 
as much but no more than did the ordinary cavalry 
standards of the Roman armies; the sacred mono- 
gram alone indicated the supreme change which 
had come over the Emperor, who, in answer to his 
prayer, had thus found that the single Deity which 
his father, Constantius, had worshipped was none 
other than Christ, the God of the Christians. For 
the Emperor, desiring to know more of the Cross 
and the Christ, summoned certain Christian teachers 
in his camp to explain these things more fully to 
him, and they told him that " Christ was God, the 
only begotten Son of the one true God, and that 
the vision he had seen was the symbol of immortal- 
ity and of the victory which Christ had won over 
death." Such, according to Eusebius, was the con- 
version of Constantine, and such was the Emperor's 
own account of the circumstances which led up to 
it. This was the official story, as it might have 



The Vision of the Cross 97 

appeared in a Roman Court Circular at the time 
when Eusebius wrote. 

But when did Eusebius write The Life of Constan- 
tine, from which we have taken this narrative ? Not 
until Constantine himself was dead, not, that is to 
say, until after 337, fully a quarter of a century after 
the event described. The date is important. In 
twenty-five years a story may be transfigured out of 
all knowledge through constant repetition by the 
narrator, to say nothing of the changes it suffers if 
it passes in active circulation from mouth to mouth. 
Has this been the fate of the story of the Vision of 
the Cross? The Life of Constantine was not the 
first volume of contemporary history published by 
Eusebius. He had already written a History of the 
Church, which he issued to the world in 326. What, 
then, had the author to say in that year about this 
marvellous vision ? Nothing. There is not a word 
about the flaming cross, or the coming of Christ to 
Constantine in a dream, or the fashioning of the La- 
barum. All Eusebius says, in his History, of the 
conversion of Constantine, is that the Emperor 
"piously called to his aid the God of Heaven and 
his son Jesus Christ." It is a strange silence. 
If the heavenly cross had been seen by the whole 
army; if the current version of the story had been 
the same in 326 as it was in 337, it is at least diffi- 
cult to understand why Eusebius omitted all men- 
tion of an event which must have been the talk of 
the whole Roman world and must have made the 
heart of every Christian exult. Such manifest signs 
from Heaven were scarcely so common in the open- 



9^ Constantine 

ing of the fourth century that an ecclesiastical his- 
torian would think any allusion to it unnecessary. 
The argument from silence is never absolutely con- 
clusive, but the reticence of Eusebius in 326 at least 
warrants a strong suspicion that the legend had not 
then crystallised itself into its final shape. 

Of even greater importance are the extraordinary 
discrepancies between the versions of Eusebius and 
Lactantius. Lactantius wrote his treatise On the 
Deaths of the Persecutors very shortly after the battle 
of the Milvian Bridge, and it has a special value, 
therefore, as containing the earliest account of the 
vision. The author, who was the tutor of the Em- 
peror's son, Crispus, must have known all there was 
to be known of the incident, for he lived in the closest 
intimacy with the court circle. We should con- 
fidently expect, therefore, that the author who retails 
verbatim the conversation of Diocletian and Galerius 
in the penetralia of the palace of Nicomedia would 
be fully aware of what took place in full view of 
Constantine's army. 

What then is the version of Lactantius ? It is 
that just before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, 
Constantine was warned in a dream to have the 
divine sign of the cross {cceleste signuin) inscribed on 
the shields of his soldiers before leading them to the 
attack. He did as he was bidden, and the letter X, 
with one of the bars slightly bent — thus, -(- — to 
form the sacred monogram, was placed upon his 
legionaries' shields. Such is the legend in its earliest 
guise. There is not a word about Constantine's 
anxiety and searching of soul. The event is placed. 



The Vision of the Cross 99 

not at the opening of the campaign, as Eusebius 
would seem to suggest though he does not expressly 
say so, but on the eve of the decisive battle. There 
is nothing about the cross flaming in the afternoon 
sky, nothing of the inscription, " Conquer by This," 
nothing of the entire army being witness of the por- 
tent. Constantine simply has a dream and is 
warned {commoniius) to place the initial of Christ on 
his soldiers' shields. It is not even said who gave 
the warning ; there is not a hint that it was Christ 
Himself — as in the story of Eusebius — who ap- 
peared to Constantine ; there is no mention of the 
Labarum. Obviously, Lactantius was aware of 
no triumphant answer to Constantine's prayer for 
a sign. According to him, the Emperor was merely 
warned in a dream that victory would reward him 
if he dedicated his weapons to the honour and 
service of Christ. 

We come back, therefore, to the official version 
of Eusebius somewhat shaken in our belief of its lit- 
eral accuracy. Let us note, too, the extreme vague- 
ness of the time and the place where the incident is 
reported to have taken place, and remember that one 
who had dwelt with Diocletian and Galerius when 
they signed the edicts of persecution could not 
possibly have been ignorant of the principles of 
Christianity, which was no longer the religion of 
an obscure sect. We need not, indeed, find any 
difficulty in accepting the first part of the story 
of Eusebius in so far as it represents Constantine 
anxiously enquiring after divine protection. It 
has been urged, very shrewdly, that the story would 



loo Constantine 

have been idealised if it had been altogether in- 
vented. Constantine was afraid that he had rashly 
committed himself and that Maxentius had already 
secured the favour of the Roman gods. His ob- 
jective, too, was Rome, still regarded with super- 
stitious dread and reverence throughout the world, 
and reverenced all the more, no doubt, in proportion 
as distance lent enchantment to the view. What 
then more natural than that he should take for 
granted that, if ever the gods of Rome had inter- 
fered in mortal affairs, they would do so now on 
behalf of Maxentius, who had been raised to empire 
as Rome's champion ? Constantine was not one of 
those rarer and choicer spirits, who seek truth for 
its own sake without regard for material advantage. 
Conversion in his case did not mean some sudden 
or even gradual change permanently altering his 
outlook upon life, and refining and transmuting 
personal character. It merely meant worshipping 
at another shrine, entering another temple, reciting 
another formula. His ruHng motive was ambition. 
He would worship the god who should bring vic- 
tory to his arms. The intensity of his conviction 
was to be measured by the extent of his success 
and by the height to which he carried his fortunes. 

But what of the second part of the story — the vis- 
ion of the cross flaming in the sky in full view of 
Constantine and his army ? Even those who admit 
miracles into critical history allow that the evidence 
for this one is exceedingly inconclusive. We need 
not doubt that Eusebius related the story just as it 
was told to him by Constantine, though the Bishop, 



The Vision of the Cross loi 

if there were choice of versions, would unhesita- 
tingly accept the one which contained most of the 
miraculous and the abnormal. Nor does the oath 
which Constantine swore in support of his story add 
anything to its credibihty. It was his habit to swear 
an oath when he wished to be emphatic. Are we, 
then, to consider that the whole legend was an inven- 
tion of the Emperor's from beginning to end ? In 
this connection it is important to take into account 
the narrative of Nazarius, a rhetorician who delivered 
a formal panegyric upon Constantine on the anni- 
versary of his tenth year of rule, and took the op- 
portunity of reviewing the whole campaign against 
Maxentius. Nazarius was a pagan ; what then was 
the pagan version, if any, of the miracle described 
by Eusebius and the Emperor ? Did the pagans at- 
tribute divine assistance to Constantine throughout 
this critical campaign ? The answer is unmis- 
takable. They did so most unequivocally. Na- 
zarius tells us * that all Gaul was talking with awe 
and wonder of the marvels which had taken place, 
how the soldiers of Constantine had seen in the sky 
celestial armies marching in battle array and had 
been dazzled by their flashing shields and glittering 
armour. Not only had the dull eyes of earthly men 
for once availed to look upon heavenly brightness ; 
Constantine's soldiery had also heard the shouts of 
these armies in the sky, " We seek Constantine ; we 
are marching to the aid of Constantine." f Clearly 
the pagan as well as the Christian world insisted 

* Pan. Vet., x., 14. 

f Constantinum petimus : Consiantino imus auxilio. 



I02 Constantine 

upon attributing divine assistance to Constantine 
and had its own version of how that succour came. 
Nazarius's explanation was simple. According to 
him, it was Constantius Chlorus, the deified Emperor, 
who was leading up the hosts of heaven, and such 
miraculous intervention was due to the supreme 
virtue of the father, which had descended to the son. 
The question at once arises whether this is merely 
a pagan version of the Christian legend. Unable to 
deny the miracle, did the pagans, in order to rob 
the Christians of this wonderful testimony to the 
truth of their religion, invent the story of Constan- 
tius and the heavenly hosts? Such a theory is 
absolutely untenable. It leaves out of sight the all- 
important fact that public opinion in the fourth cent- 
ury — as indeed for many centuries both before and 
after — was not only willing to believe in super- 
natural intervention at moments of great crisis, but 
actually insisted that there should be such interven- 
tion. The greater the crisis, the more entirely rea- 
sonable it was that some deity or deities should 
make their influence especially felt and turn the 
scale to one side or the other. Every Roman be- 
lieved that Castor and Pollux had fought for Rome 
in the supreme struggle against Hannibal. Julius 
believed that the favour of Venus Genetrix, the 
special patroness of the Julian House, had helped 
him to win the battle of Pharsalus. Augustus was 
just as certain that Apollo had fought on his side at 
Philippi and at Actium. It was easy — and modest 
— for the winner to believe in his protecting deity's 
strength of arm. 



The Vision of the Cross 103 

One curious phrase employed by Nazarius is worth 
noting. It is that in which he claims that the special 
interference of Heaven on behalf of Constantine was 
not merely an extraordinary and gratifying tribute to 
the Emperor's virtues, but that it was no more than 
his due. In short, the crisis was so tremendous that 
Heaven would have stood convicted of a strange 
failure to see events in their just proportion if it had 
not done " some great thing," and wrought some 
corresponding wonder. Such was the idea at the 
back of Nazarius's mind ; we suspect that it was not 
wanting in the mind of Eusebius or of Constantine. 
We may put the matter paradoxically and say that 
a miracle in those days was not much considered un- 
less it was a very great one. People who were ac- 
customed to see — or to think that they saw — statues 
sweating blood, and to hear words proceeding from 
lips of bronze or marble, and were accustomed to 
treat such untoward events merely as portents de- 
noting that something unusual was about to happen, 
must have been difificult people to surprise. Natur- 
ally, therefore, legends grew more and more marvel- 
lous with repetition after the event. The oftener a 
man told such a story the less appeal it would make 
to his own wonder, unless he fortified it with some 
new incident. But to impress one's auditors it is 
above all things necessary to be impressed oneself. 
Hence the well-garnished narrative of Nazarius. The 
idea of armies marching along the sky was common 
enough. Any one can imagine he sees the ghnt of 
weapons as the sun strikes the clouds. But this does 
not satisfy the professional rhetorician. He bids us 



104 Constantine 

see the proud look in the faces of the heavenly hosts, 
and distinguish the cries with which they move to 
battle. But if Nazarius is suspect, why not Euse- 
bius and Constantine? Unless, indeed, there is to 
be one standard for pagan and another for Christian 
miracles ! 

But was there some unusual manifestation in the 
sky which was the common basis of the stories of 
Eusebius and Nazarius? It is not unreasonable to 
suppose so. Scientists say that the natural phenom- 
enon known as the parhelion not infrequently as- 
sumes the shape of a cross, and Dean Stanley, while 
discussing this possible explanation in his Lectures 
on the Eastern Church, instanced the extraordinary 
impression made upon the minds of the vulgar by 
the aurora borealis of November, 1848. He recalled 
how, throughout France, the people thought they 
saw in the sky the letters L. N. — the initials of 
Louis Napoleon — and took them as a clear indication 
from Heaven of how they ought to vote at the im- 
pending Presidential election, and as an omen of the 
result. That was the interpretation in France. In 
Rome — where the people knew and cared nothing 
for Louis Napoleon — no one saw the Napoleonic ini- 
tials. The lurid gleam in the sky was there thought 
to be the blood of the murdered Rossi, which had 
risen to heaven and was calling for vengeance. In 
Oporto, on the other hand, the conscience-stricken 
populace thought the fire was coming down from 
heaven to punish them for their profligacy. If such 
varying interpretations of a natural if rare phenom- 
enon were possible in the middle of the nineteenth 



The Vision of the Cross 105 

century, what interpretation was not possible in the 
fourth? The world was profoundly superstitious. 
When people believe in manifest signs they usually 
see them. Some Polonius, gifted either with better 
vision or livelier imagination than his fellows, declares 
that he can distinguish clear and definite shapes 
amid the vague outline of the clouds ; the report 
spreads ; the legend grows. And when legends are 
found to serve a useful purpose the authorities lend 
them countenance, guarantee their accuracy, and 
even take to themselves the credit of their authorship. 
At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war a strange 
story came from St. Petersburg that the Russian 
moujiks were passing on from village to village the 
legend that St. George had been seen in the skies 
leading his hosts to the Far East against the infidel 
Japanese. Had Russian victories followed, what 
better " proof " of celestial aid could have been de- 
sired? But as disaster ensued, it is to be supposed 
that St. George remembered midway that he also 
had interests in the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and 
remained strictly neutral. 

But though we may be justly sceptical of the cir- 
cumstances attending the conversion of Constan- 
tine, there is no room to doubt the conversion itself. 
We do not believe that he fought the battle of the 
Milvian Bridge as the avowed champion of Christ- 
ianity, but the probabilities are that he had made 
up his mind to become a Christian when he fought 
it. The miraculous vision in the heavens, the 
dream in the quiet of the night, the appearance of 
Christ by the bedside of the Emperor — as to these 



io6 Constantine 

things we may keep an open mind, but the fashion- 
ing of the Labarum — the sacred standard which 
was preserved for so many centuries as the most 
precious of imperial heirlooms and was seen and 
described as late as the ninth century — this was the 
outward and visible proof of the change which had 
come over the Emperor. He had abandoned Apollo 
for Christ. The sun-god had been the favourite 
deity of his youth and early manhood, as it had been 
of Augustus Csesar, the founder of the Empire, and 
the originator of the close association between the 
worship of Apollo and the worship of the reigning 
Caesar. Constantine would not fail to note that many 
of the most gracious attributes of Apollo belonged 
also to Christ. 

He soon manifested the sincerity of his conver- 
sion. After a short stay in Rome, he went north to 
Milan, where he gave the hand of his sister, Constan- 
tia, to his ally, Licinius. Diocletian was invited, but 
declined to make the journey. The two Emperors, 
no doubt, desired to secure the prestige of his moral 
support in their mutual hostility to the Emperor of 
the East, and the benefit of his counsel in their de- 
liberations upon the state of the Empire. But even 
if Diocletian had been tempted to leave his cabbages 
to join in the marriage festivities and the political 
conference at Milan, we imagine that he would still 
have declined if he had been given any hint of the 
intentions of Constantine and Licinius with respect 
to the great question of religious toleration or perse- 
cution. He might have been candid enough to 
admit the failure of his policy, but he would still 



The Edict of Milan 107 

have shrunk from proclaiming it with his own Hps. 
For, before the festivities at Milan were interrupted 
by the news that Maximin had thrown down the 
gage of battle, Constantine and Licinius issued in 
their joint names the famous Edict of Milan, which 
proclaimed for the first time in its absolute entirety 
the noble principle of complete religious toleration. 
Despite their length, it will be well to give in full 
the more important clauses. They are found in the 
text which has been happily preserved by Lactan- 
tius* in the original Latin, while we also have the 
edict in Greek in the Ecclesiastical History of Euse- 
bius (x. 5). It runs ^s follows: 

" Inasmuch as we, Constantine Augustus and Licinius 
Augustus, have met together at Milan on a joyful oc- 
casion, and have discussed all that appertains to the 
public advantage and safety, we have come to the con- 
clusion that, among the steps likely to profit the majority 
of mankind and demanding immediate attention, nothing 
is more necessary than to regulate the worship of the 
Divinity. 

"We have decided, therefore, to grant both to the 
Christians and to all others perfect freedom to practise 
the religion which each has thought best for himself, 
that so whatever Divinity resides in heaven may be pla- 
cated, and rendered propitious to us and to all who have 
been placed under our authority. Consequently, we 
have thought this to be the policy demanded alike by 
healthy and sound reason — that no one, on any pretext 
whatever, should be denied freedom to choose his re- 
ligion, whether he prefers the Christian religion or any 



* De Mart, Per sec. , c. 



io8 Constantine 

other that seems most suited to him, in order that the 
Supreme Divinity, whose observance we obey with free 
minds, may in all things vouchsafe to us its usual favours 
and benevolences. 

"Wherefore, it is expedient for your Excellency toknow 
that we have resolved to abolish every one of the stipu- 
lations contained in all previous edicts sent to you with 
respect to the Christians, on the ground that they now 
seem to us to be unjust and alien from the spirit of our 
clemency. 

"Henceforth, in perfectand absolute freedom, eachand 
every person who chooses to belong to and practise 
the Christian religion shall be at liberty to do so without 
let or hindrance in any shape or form. 

" We have thought it best to explain this to your Ex- 
cellency in the fullest possible manner that you may 
know that we have accorded to these same Christians 
a free and absolutely unrestricted right to practise their 
own religion. 

" And inasmuch as you see that we have granted this 
indulgence to the Christians, your Excellency will un- 
derstand that a similarly free and unrestricted right, con- 
formable to the peace of our times, is granted to all 
others equally to practise the religion of their choice. 
We have resolved upon this course that no one and no 
religion may seem to be robbed of the honour that is 
their due." 

Then follow the most explicit instructions for the 
restoration to the Christians of the properties of 
which they had been robbed during the persecutions, 
though the robbery had been committed in accord- 
ance with imperial command. Whether a property 
had been simply confiscated, or sold, or given away, 



The Edict of Milan 109 

it was to be handed back without the slightest cost 
and without any delays or ambiguities {Postposita 
omni frustratione atque ambiguitate). Purchasers 
who had bought such properties in good faith were 
to be indemnified from the pubhc treasury by grace 
of the Emperor. 

But the abiding interest of this celebrated edict 
lies in the general principles there clearly enunciated. 
Every man, without distinction of rank or national- 
ity, is to have absolute freedom to choose and prac- 
tise the religion which he deems most suited to his 
needs {Libera atque absoluta colendce religionis sues 
facultai). The phrase is repeated with almost wea- 
risome iteration, but the principle was novel and 
strange, and one can see the anxiety of the framers 
of this edict that there shall be no possible loophole 
for misunderstanding. Everybody is to have free 
choice; all previous anti-Christian enactments are 
annulled ; not only is no compulsion to be employed 
against the Christian, he is not even to be troubled 
or annoyed {Citra ullam inquietudineni ac molestiain). 
The novelty lay not so much in the toleration of the 
existence of Christianity, — both Constantine and 
Licinius had two years before signed the edict 

whereby Galerius put an end to the persecution, 

but in its formal ofificial recognition by the State. 

What motives, then, are assigned by the Emperors 
for this notable change of policy? Certainly not ' 
humanity. Nothing is said of the terrors of the late 
persecutions and the horrible sufferings of the Christ- 
ians — there is merely a bald reference to previous 
edicts which the Emperors consider "unjust and 



I lo Constantine 

alien from the spirit of our clemency " {Sinistra et 
a nostra dementia aliena esse). There is no appeal 
to political necessity, such as the exhaustion of the 
world and its palpable need of rest. The motives 
assigned are purely religious. The Emperors pro- 
claim religious toleration in order that they and 
their subjects may continue to receive the blessings 
of Heaven. One of them at least had just emerged 
victoriously from the manifold hazards of an invasion 
of Italy. Surely we can trace a reference to the 
battle of the Milvian Bridge and the overthrow of 
Maxentius in the mention of " the Divine favour 
towards us, which we have experienced in affairs of 
the highest moment " {Divinus juxta no s favor quern 
in tantis sumiis rebus experti). What Constantine 
and Licinius hope to secure is a continuance of the 
favour and benevolence of the Supreme Divinity, 
the patronage of the ruling powers of the sky. The 
phraseology is important. The name of God is not 
mentioned — only the vague " Summa Divinitas,'' 
" Divinus favor ^' and the still more curious and 
non-committal phrase, " Quicquid est Divinitatis in 
sede coslestiy In Eusebius the same phrase appears 
in a form still more nebulous {on nori dan dsiorrj^ 
udi ovpaviov Tcpdyjxaro?). A pagan philosopher, 
more than half sceptical as to the existence of a per- 
sonal God, might well employ such language, but it 
reads strangely in an official edict. 

But then this edict was to bear the joint names 
of Constantine and Licinius. Constantine might be 
a Christian, but Licinius was still a pagan, and Licin- 
ius was not his vassal, but his equal. He would cer- 



The Edict of Milan in 

tainly not have been prepared to set his name to an 
edict which pledged him to personal adherence to the 
Christian faith. Constantine, in the flush of triumph, 
would insist that the persecution of the Christians 
should cease, and that the Christian religion should 
be officially recognised. Licinius would raise no 
objection. But they would speedily find, when it 
came to drafting a joint edict, that the only religious 
ground common to them both was very limited in 
extent, and that the only way to preserve a sem- 
blance of unity was to employ the vaguest phrase- 
ology which each might interpret in his own fashion. 
If we can imagine the Pope and the Caliph drafting 
a joint appeal to mankind which necessitated the 
mention of the Higher Power, they would find them- 
selves driven to use words as cloudy and indistinct 
as the " Whatever Divinity there is and heavenly 
substance" of Eusebius. No, it was not that Con- 
stantine's mind was in the transitional stage ; it was 
rather that he had to find a common platform for 
himself and Licinius. 

But to have converted Licinius at all to an 
official recognition of the Christians and complete 
toleration was a great achievement, for the principle, 
as we have said, was entirely new. M. Gaston 
Boissier, in discussing this point, recalls how even 
the broad-minded Plato had found no place in his 
ideal republic for those who disbelieved in the gods 
of their fatherland and of the city of their birth. 
Even if they kept their opinions to themselves and 
did not seek to disturb the faith of others, Plato 
insisted upon their being placed in a House of 



112 Constantine 

Correction — it is true he calls it a Sophronisterion, or 
House of Wisdom — for five years, where they were 
to listen to a sermon every day ; while, if they were 
zealous propagandists of their pernicious doctrines, 
he proposed to keep them all their lives in horrible 
dungeons and deny their bodies after death the 
right of sepulture. How, one wonders, would Soc- 
rates have fared in such a state? No better, we 
fancy, than he fared in his own city of Athens. 
But, throughout antiquity, every lawgiver took the 
same view, that a good citizen must accept without 
question the gods of his native place who had been 
the gods of his fathers ; and it was a simple step 
from that position to the stern refusal to allow a 
man, in the vigorous words of the Old Testament, 
to go a-whoring after other gods. " For I, thy God, 
am a jealous God." The God of the Jews was not 
more jealous than the gods of the Assyrians, the 
Egyptians, the Greeks, or the Romans would like 
to have been, had they had the same power of 
concise expression. 

What was the theory of the State religion in 
Rome? Cicero tells us in a well-known passage in 
his treatise On the Laws, where he quotes the 
ancient formula, " Let no man have separate gods of 
his own : nor let people privately worship new gods 
or alien gods, unless they have been publicly ad- 
mitted." * Nothing could be more explicit. But 
theory and practice in Rome had a habit of be- 
coming divorced from one another. It is a noto- 

* Separatim nemo habessit deos : neve novos, sive advenas, nisi 
publice adscitos privatim colunto, — De Leg., ii., 8. 



The Edict of Milan 113 

rious fact that, as Rome's conquering eagles flew 
farther afield, the legions and the merchants who fol- 
lowed in their track brought all manner of strangegods 
back to the city, where every wandering Chaldaean 
thaumaturgist, magician, or soothsayer found wel- 
come and profit, and every stray goddess — especially 
if her rites had mysteries attached to them — re- 
ceived a comfortable home. In a word, Rome 
found new religions just as fascinating — for a season 
or two — as do the capitals of the modern world, 
and these new religions were certainly not "publicly 
admitted " by the Pontifex Maximus and the re- 
presentatives of the State religion. Occasionally, 
usually after some outbreak of pestilence or because 
an Emperor was nervous at the presence of so many 
swarthy charlatans devoting themselves to the 
Black Arts, an order of expulsion would be issued 
and there would be a fluttering of the dove-cotes. 
But they came creeping back one by one, as the 
storm blew over. While, therefore, in theory the 
gods of Rome were jealous, in practice they were 
not so. The easy scepticism or eclecticism of the 
cultured Roman was conducive to tolerance. 
Cicero's famous sentence in the Pro Flacco, " Each 
state has its own religion, Laelius : we have ours," 
shews how little of the religious fanatic there was 
in the average Roman, who stole the gods of the 
people he conquered and made them his own, so 
that they might acquiesce in the Roman domination. 
The Roman was tolerant enough in private life 
towards other people's religious convictions : all he 
asked was reciprocity, ard that was precisely what 



114 



Constantine 



the Christian would not and could not give him. 
If the Christian would have sacrificed at the altars 
of the State gods, the Roman would never have 
objected to his worship of Christ for his own private 
satisfaction. There lies the secret of the perse- 
cutions, and of the fierce anti-Christian hatreds. 

Constantine and Licinius, by their edict of recog- 
nition and toleration, " publicly admitted " into the 
Roman worship the God of the Christians. 




CHAPTER VII 

THE DOWNFALL OF LICINIUS 

IT will be convenient in this chapter to present a 
connected narrative of the course of political 
events from the Edict of Milan in 313 down to the 
overthrow of Licinius by Constantine in 324. We 
have seen that Maximin Daza never moved a single 
soldier to help his ally, Maxentius, during Constan- 
tine's invasion of Italy, though he soon gave prac- 
tical proof that his hostility had not abated by 
invading the territory of Licinius. The attack was 
clearly not expected. Licinius was still at Milan, and 
his troops had probably been drawn off into winter 
quarters, when the news came that Maximin had 
collected a powerful army in Syria, had marched 
through to Bithynia regardless of the sufferings of 
his legions and the havoc caused in the ranks by the 
severity of the season, and had succeeded in cross- 
ing the Bosphorus. Apparently, Maximin was be- 
sieging Byzantium before Licinius was ready to 
move from Italy to confront him. 

Byzantium capitulated after a siege of eleven 
days and Heraclea did not offer a prolonged resist- 
ance. By this time, however, Licinius was getting 

115 



ii6 Constantine 

within touch of the invader and preparations were 
made on both sides for a pitched battle. The num- 
bers of Licinius's army were scarcely half those 
of his rival, but Maximin was completely routed on 
a plain called Serenus, near the city of Adrianople, 
and fled for his life, leaving his broken battalions to 
shift for themselves. Lactantius, in describing the 
engagement,* represents it as having been a duel 
to the death between Christianity and paganism. 
He says that Maximin had vowed to eradicate the 
very name of the Christians if Jupiter favoured his 
arms ; while Licinius had been warned by an angel 
of God in a dream that, if he wished to make infalli- 
bly sure of victory, he and his army had only to 
recite a prayer to Almighty God which the angel 
would dictate to him. Licinius at once sent for 
a secretary and the prayer was taken down. It ran 
as follows : 

"God most High, we call upon Thee; Holy God, we 
call upon Thee. We commend to Thee all justice; we 
commend to Thee our safety; we commend to Thee our 
sovereignty. Through Thee we live; through Thee we 
gain victory and happiness. Most High and Holy God, 
hear our prayers. We stretch out our arms to Thee. 
Hear us. Most High and Holy God." 

Such was the talismanic prayer of which the 
Emperor's secretary made hurried copies, distribu- 
ting them to the general officers and the tribunes of 
the legions, with instructions that the troops were 



* J}e Mart. Per sec. , c. 46, 



The Downfall of Licinius 117 

at once to get the words off by heart. When the 
armies moved against one another in battle array, 
the legions of Licinius at a given signal laid down 
their shields, removed their helmets, and, lifting their 
hands to heaven, recited in unison these rhythmic 
sentences with their strangely effective repetitions. 
Lactantius tells us that the murmur of the prayer 
was borne upon the ears of the doomed army of the 
enemy. Then, after a brief colloquy between the 
rivals, in which Maximin refused to offer or agree to 
any concession, because he believed that the soldiers 
of Licinius would come over to him in a body, the 
armies charged and the standard of Maximin went 
down. 

It is a striking story, and we may easily understand 
that Licinius, fresh from his meeting with Constan- 
tine and with vivid recollection of how valiantly 
this Summus Deus had fought for his ally against 
Maxentius, would be ready to believe beforehand 
in the efficacy of any supernatural warning con- 
veyed by any supernatural " minister of grace." 
We may note, too, the splendid vagueness of the 
Deity invoked in the prayer. Lactantius, of course, 
claims that this Most High and Holy God is none 
other than the God of the Christians, but there was 
nothing to prevent the votary of Jupiter, of Apollo, 
of Mithra, of Baal, or of Balenus, from thinking that 
he was imploring the aid of his own familiar deity. 

Maximin fied from the scene of carnage as though 
he had been pursued by all the Cabiri. Throwing 
aside his purple and assuming the garb of a slave — it 
is Lactantius, however, who is speaking — he crossed 



ii8 Constantine 

the Bosphorus, and, within twenty-four hours of quit- 
ting the field, reached once more the palace of Nico- 
media — a distance of a hundred and sixty miles. 
Taking his wife and children with him, he hurried 
through the defiles of the Taurus, summoned to 
his side whatever troops he had left behind in Syria 
and Egypt, and awaited the oncoming of Licinius, 
who followed at leisure in his tracks. The end was 
not long delayed. Maximin's soldiers regarded his 
cause as lost, and despairing of clemency, he took 
his own life at Tarsus. His provinces passed with- 
out a struggle into the hands of Licinius, who butch- 
ered every surviving member of Maximin's family. 

Nor had the victor pity even for two ladies of 
imperial rank, whose misfortunes and sufferings ex- 
cited the deepest compassion in that stony-hearted 
age. These were Prisca, the wife of Diocletian, and 
her daughter Valeria, the widow of the Emperor 
Galerius. On his death-bed Galerius had entrusted 
his wife to the care and the gratitude of Maximin, 
whom he had raised from obscurity to a throne. 
Maximin repaid his confidence by pressing Valeria 
to marry him and offering to divorce his own wife. 
Valeria returned an indignant and high-spirited re- 
fusal. She would never think of marriage, she said,* 
while still wearing mourning for a husband whose 
ashes were not yet cold. It was monstrous that 
Maximin should seek to divorce a faithful wife, and, 
even if she assented to his proposal, she had clear 
warning of what was likely to be her own fate. 



* De Mart. Per sec, c. 39. 



The Downfall of Li cinius 119 

Finally, it was not becoming that the daughter of 
Diocletian and the widow of Galerius should stoop 
to a second marriage. Maximin took a bitter re- 
venge. He reduced Valeria to penury, marked 
down all her friends for ruin, and finally drove her 
into exile with her mother, Prisca, who nobly shared 
the sufferings of the daughter whom she could not 
shield. Lactantius tells us that the two imperial 
ladies wandered miserably through the Syrian 
wastes, while Maximin took delight in spurning the 
overtures of the aged Diocletian, who sent repeated 
messages begging that his daughter might be allowed 
to go and live with him at Salona. Maximin re- 
fused even when Diocletian sent one of his rela- 
tives to remind him of past benefits, and the two 
unfortunate ladies knew no alleviation of their 
troubles. When the tyrant fell, they probably 
thought that the implacable hatred with which 
Maximin had pursued them would be their best 
recommendation to the favour of Licinius. Again, 
however, they were disappointed, for Licinius, in 
his jealous anxiety to spare no one connected with 
the families of his predecessors in the purple, or- 
dered the execution of Candidianus, a natural son 
of Galerius, who had been brought up by Valeria as 
her own child. In despair, therefore, the two ladies, 
who had boldly gone to Nicomedia, fled from the 
scene and " wandered for fifteen months, disguised as 
plebeians, through various provinces,"* until they 
had the misfortune to be recognised at Thessalonica. 



* De Mart Per sec, c. 51. 



I20 Constantine 

They were at once beheaded and their bodies 
thrown into the sea, amid the pitying sympathy of a 
vast throng which dared not hft a hand to save 
them. 

Constantine and Licinius now shared between 
them the whole of the Roman Empire. They were 
alHes, but their alhance did not long stand the strain 
of their respective ambitions. Each had won an easy 
victory over his antagonist, and each was confident 
that his legions would suffice to win him undivided 
empire. We know very little of the pretexts as- 
signed for the quarrel which culminated in the war 
of 316. Zosimus throws the blame upon Constan- 
tine, whom he accuses of not keeping faith and of 
trying to filch from Licinius some of his provinces. 
But as the sympathies of Zosimus were strongly 
pagan and as he invariably imputed the worst possible 
motive to Constantine, it is fairest and most reason- 
able to suppose that the two Emperors simply quar- 
relled over the division of the Empire. Constantine 
had given the hand of his half-sister Anastasia to 
one of his generals, named Bassianus, whom he had 
raised to the dignity of a Csesar. But for some 
reason left unexplained — possibly because Constan- 
tine granted only the title, without the legions and 
the provinces, of a Caesar — Bassianus became dis- 
contented with his position and entered into an 
intrigue with Licinius. Constantine discovered the 
plot, put Bassianus to death, and demanded from 
Licinius the surrender of Senecio, a brother of the 
victim and a relative of Licinius. The demand was 
refused ; some statues of Constantine were demol- 



The Downfall of Licinius 121 

ished by Licinius's orders at ^Emona (Laybach) 
and war ensued. 

The armies met in the autumn of 316 near Cibalis, 
in Pannonia, between the rivers Drave and Save. 
Neither Emperor led into the field anything ap- 
proaching the full strength he was able to muster ; 
Licinius is said to have had only 35,000 men and 
Constantine no more than 20,000. From Zosimus's 
highly rhetorical account of the battle* we gather 
that Constantine chose a position between a steep 
hill and an impassable morass, and repulsed the 
charge of the legions of Licinius. Then as he 
advanced into the plain in pursuit of the enemy, he 
was checked by some fresh troops which Licinius 
brought up, and a long and stubborn contest lasted 
until nightfall, when Constantine decided the for- 
tunes of the day by an irresistible charge. Licinius 
is said to have lost 20,000 men in this encounter, 
more than fifty per cent, of his entire force, and he 
beat a hurried retreat, leaving his camp to be plun- 
dered by the victor, whose own losses must also 
have been severe. 

A few weeks later the battle was renewed on the 
plain of Mardia in Thrace. Licinius had evidently 
been strongly reinforced from Asia, for, though he 
was again defeated after a hotly contested battle, 
he was able to effect an orderly retreat and draw off 
his beaten troops without disorder — a rare thing in 
the annals of Roman warfare, where defeat usually 
involved destruction. Constantine is said to have 



* Zosimus, ii., 19. 



122 Constantine 

owed his victory to his superior generalship and to 
the skill with which he timed a surprise attack of 
five thousand of his men upon the rear of the 
enemy. Yet we may be certain that he would not 
have consented to treat with Licinius for peace had 
he not had considerable cause for anxiety about the 
final issue of the campaign. However, his two 
victories, while not sufficiently decisive to enable 
him to dictate any terms he chose, at least gave him 
the authoritative word in the negotiations which 
ensued, and sealed the doom of the unfortunate 
Valens, whom Licinius had just appointed Caesar. 
When Licinius's envoy spoke of his two imperial 
masters, Licinius and Valens, Constantine retorted 
that he recognised but one, and bluntly stated that 
he had not endured tedious marches and won a 
succession of victories, only to share the prize with 
a contemptible slave. Licinius sacrificed his Heu- 
tenant without compunction and consented to hand 
over to Constantine Illyria and its legions, with the 
important provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Moesia, 
and Dacia. The only foothold left him on the Con- 
tinent of Europe, out of all that had previously been 
included in the eastern half of the Empire, was the 
province of Thrace. 

At the same time, the two Emperors agreed to 
elevate their sons to the rank of Caesar. Constan- 
tine bestowed the dignity upon Crispus, the son of 
his first marriage with Minervina. Crispus was now 
in the promise of early manhood, and had proved 
his valour, and won his spurs in the recent campaign. 
Licinius gave the title to his son Licinianus, an infant 



The Downfall of Licinius 1^3 

no more than twenty months old. These appoint- 
ments are important, for they shew how completely 
the system of Diocletian had broken down. The Em- 
perors appointed Caesars out of deference to the 
letter of that constitution, but they outrageously 
violated its spirit by appointing their own sons, and 
when the choice fell on an infant, insult was added 
to injury. It was plain warning to all the world 
that Constantine and Licinius meant to keep power 
in their own hands. When, a few years later, three 
sons were born to Constantine and Fausta in quick 
succession, the eldest, who was given the name of 
his father, was created Caesar shortly after his birth. 
No doubt the Empress — herself an Emperor's 
daughter — demanded that her son should enjoy 
equal rank with the son of the low-born Minervina, 
and the probabilities are that Constantine already 
looked forward to providing the young Princes with 
patrimonies carved out of the territory of Licinius. 
However, there was no actual rupture between the 
two Emperors until 323, though relations had long 
been strained. 

We know comparatively little of what took place 
in the intervening years. They were not, however, 
years of unbroken peace. There was fighting both 
on the Danube and the Rhine. The Goths and 
the Sarmatae, who had been taught such a severe 
lesson by Claudius and Aurelian that they had left 
the Danubian frontier undisturbed for half a century, 
again surged forward and swept over Moesia and 
Pannonia. We hear of several hard-fought battles 
along the course of the river, and then, when Con- 



124 Constantine 

stantine, at the head of his legions, had driven out 
the invader, he himself crossed the Danube and 
compelled the barbarians to assent to a peace 
whereby they pledged themselves to supply the 
Roman armies, when required, with forty thousand 
auxiliaries. The details of this campaign are ex- 
ceedingly obscure and untrustworthy. The Pane- 
gyrists of the Emperor claimed that he had repeated 
the triumphs of Trajan. Constantine himself is 
represented by the mocking Juhan as boasting that 
he was a greater general than Trajan, because it is 
a finer thing to win back what you have lost than 
to conquer something which was not yours before. 
The probabilities are that there took place one of 
those alarming barbarian movements from which 
the Roman Empire was never long secure, that Con- 
stantine beat it back successfully, and gained vic- 
tories which were decisive enough at the moment, 
but in which there was no real finality, because 
no finality was possible. Probably it was the seri- 
ousness of these Gothic and Sarmatian campaigns 
which was chiefly responsible for the years of peace 
between Constantine and Licinius. Until the bar- 
barian danger had been repelled, Constantine was 
perforce obliged to remain on tolerable terms with 
the Emperor of the East. 

While the father was thus engaged on the Danube, 
the son was similarly employed on the Rhine. The 
young Caesar, Crispus, already entrusted with the 
administration of Gaul and Britain and the command 
of the Rhine legions, won a victory over the Al- 
emanni in a winter campaign and distinguished 



The Downfall of Licinius 125 

himself by the skill and rapidity with which he exe- 
cuted a long forced march despite the icy rigours 
of a severe season. It is Nazarius, the Panegyrist, 
who refers * in glowing sentences to this admirable 
performance — carried through, he says, with " in- 
credibly youthful verve" {incredibili juvenilitate 
confecit), — and praises Crispus to the skies as " the 
most noble Caesar of his august father." When 
that speech was delivered on the day of the Quin- 
quennalia of the Caesars in 321, Constantine's ears 
did not yet grudge to listen to the eulogies of his 
gallant son. 

But there is one omission from the speech which 
is exceedingly significant. It contains no mention 
of Licinius, and no one reading the oration would 
gather that there were two Emperors or that the 
Empire was divided. Evidently, Constantine and 
Licinius were no longer on good terms, and none 
knew better than the Panegyrists of the Court the 
art of suppressing the slightest word or reference 
that might bring a frown to the brow of their im- 
perial auditor. But even two years before, in 319, 
the names of Licinius and the boy, Caesar Licini- 
anus, had ceased to figure on the consular Fasti — 
a straw which pointed very clearly in which direc- 
tion the wind was blowing. 

Zosimus attributes the war to the ambition of 
Constantine; Eutropius roundly accuses f him of 
having set his heart upon acquiring the sovereignty 



* Pan. Vet. , x. , 36. 

\ Eutropius, X. , 5 ; Principatum tqtius orbis adfectans. 



126 Constantine 

of the whole world. On the other hand, Eusebius * 
depicts Constantine as a magnanimous monarch, the 
very pattern of humanity, long suffering of injury, 
and forgiving to the point of seventy times seven 
the ungrateful intrigues of the black-hearted Licinius. 
According to the Bishop of Czesarea, Constantine 
had been the benefactor of Licinius, who, con- 
scious of his inferiority, plotted in secret until he 
was driven into open enmity. But it is very evident 
that the reason of Eusebius's enmity to Licinius was 
the anti-Christian policy into which the Emperor 
had drifted, as soon as he became estranged from 
Constantine. A more detailed description of Li- 
cinius's religious policy and of the new persecution 
which broke out in his provinces will be found in 
another chapter ; here we need only point out 
Eusebius's anxiety to represent the cause of the 
quarrel between the Emperors as being in the main 
a religious one. He tells usf that Licinius re- 
garded as traitors to himself those who were friendly 
to his rival, and savagely attacked the bishops, who, 
as he judged, were his most bitter opponents. The 
phrase, not without reason, has given rise to the 
suspicion that the Christian bishops of the East 
were regarded as head centres of political disaffec- 
tion, and Licinius evidently suspected them of 
preaching treason and acting as the agents of Con- 
stantine. We have not sufficient data to enable us 
to draw any sure inference, but the bishops could 
not help contrasting the hberality of Constantine to 
the Church, of which he was the open champion, 
*Euseb., De Vita Const, ^ i., 50, \Ibid., i., 56, 



The Downfall of Licinius 127 

with the reactionary policy of Licinius, which had at 
length culminated in active persecution. 

But the dominant cause of this war is to be found 
in political ambitions rather than in religious pas- 
sions, and if we must declare who of the two was 
the aggressor, it is difificult to escape throwing the 
blame upon Constantine. Licinius was advancing 
in years. Even if he had not outlived his am- 
bitions, he can at least have had little taste for a 
campaign in which he put all to the venture. Con- 
stantine, on the other hand, was in the prime of life, 
and the master of a well tried, disciplined, and 
victorious army. The odds were on his side. He 
had all the legions which could be spared from the 
Rhine and the Danube, and all the auxiliaries from 
the lUyrian and Pannonian provinces— the best 
recruiting grounds in the Empire — to oppose to the 
legions of Syria and Egypt. Constantine doubtless 
seemed to the bishops to be entering the field as the 
champion of the Church, but the real prize which 
drew him on was universal dominion. 

This time both Emperors exerted themselves to 
make tremendous preparations for the struggle. 
Zosimus describes how Constantine began a new 
naval harbour at Thessalonica to accommodate the 
two hundred war galleys and two thousand trans- 
ports which he had ordered to be built in his dock- 
yards. He mobilised, if Zosimus is to be trusted, 
120,000 infantry and 10,000 marines and cavalry^ 
Licinius, on the other hand, is said to have collected 
150,000 foot and 15,000 horse. Whether these 
numbers are trustworthy or not, it is evident that 



128 Constantine 

the two Emperors did their best to throw every 
available man into the plain of Adrianople, where 
the two hosts were separated by the river Hebrus. 
Some days were spent in skirmishing and manoeu- 
vring; then on July 3, 323, a decisive action was 
brought on, which ended in the rout of the army of 
Licinius. Constantine, whose tactical dispositions 
seem to have been more skilful than those of Li- 
cinius, secretly detached a force of 5000 archers to 
occupy a position in the rear of the enemy, and 
these used their bows with overwhelming effect at a 
critical moment of the action, when Constantine 
himself, at the head of another detachment, suc- 
ceeded in forcing a passage of the river. Constan- 
tine received a slight wound in the thigh, but he 
had the satisfaction of seeing the enemy driven from 
their fortified camp and betake themselves in hur- 
ried flight to the sheltering walls of Byzantium, 
leaving 34,000 dead and wounded on the field 
of battle. 

Byzantium was a stronghold which had fallen be- 
fore Maximin after a siege of eleven days, but we 
may suppose that Licinius had looked well to its 
fortifications with a view to such an emergency as 
that in which he now found himself. He placed, 
however, his chief reliance in his fleet, which was 
nearly twice as numerous as that of Constantine. 
Licinius had assembled 350 ships of war, levied, in 
accordance with the practice of Rome, from the mar- 
itime countries of Asia and Egypt. No fewer than 
130 came from Egypt and Libya, 1 10 from Phoenicia 
and Cyprus, and a similar quota from the ports of 



The Downfall of Licinius 129 

Cilicia. Ionia, and Bithynia. The galleys were prob- 
ably in good fighting trim, but the service was not a 
willing one, and the fleet was as badly handled as 
it was badly stationed. Amandus, the admiral of 
Licinius, had kept his ships cooped up in the 
narrow Hellespont, thus acting weakly on the defen- 
sive instead of boldly seeking out the enemy. Con- 
stantine entrusted the chief command of his various 
squadrons to his son Crispus, whose only experience 
of naval matters had probably been obtained from 
the manoeuvres of the war galleys on the Rhine. But 
a Roman general was supposed to be able to take 
command on either element as circumstances re- 
quired. In the present case Crispus more than justi- 
fied his father's choice. He was ordered to attack 
and destroy Amandus, and the peremptoriness of 
the order was doubtless due to the difficulty of ob- 
taining supplies for so large an army by land trans- 
port only. Two actions were fought on two successive 
days. In the first Amandus had both wind and cur- 
rent in his favour and made a drawn battle of it. 
The next day the wind had veered round to the 
south, and Crispus, closing with the enemy, destroyed 
130 of their vessels and 5000 of their crews. The 
passage of the Hellespont was forced ; Amandus 
with the remainder of his fleet fled back to the shel- 
ter of Byzantium, and the straits were open for the 
passage of Constantine's transports. 

The Emperor pushed the siege with energy, and 
plied the walls so vigorously with his engines that 
Licinius, aware that the capitulation of Byzantium 
could not long be postponed, crossed over into Asia 



I30 Constantine 

to escape being involved in its fate. Even then he 
was not utterly despondent of success, for he raised 
one of his lieutenants, Martinianus, to the dignity of 
Caesar or Augustus — a perilous distinction for any 
recipient with the short shrift of Valens before his 
eyes — and, collecting what troops he could, he set 
his fleet and army to oppose the crossing of Con- 
stantine when Byzantium had fallen. But holding 
as he did the command of the sea, the victor found 
no difficulty in effecting a landing at Chrysopolis, 
and Licinius's last gallant effort to drive back the in- 
vader was repulsed with a loss of 25,000 men. Euse- 
bius, in an exceptionally foolish chapter, declares 
that Licinius harangued his troops before the battle, 
bidding them carefully keep out of the way of the 
sacred Labarum, under which Constantine moved to 
never-failing victory, or, if they had the mischance 
to come near it in the press of battle, not to look 
heedlessly upon it. He then goes on to ascribe the 
victory not to the superior tactical dispositions of his 
chief or to the valour of his men, but simply and solely 
to the fact that Constantine was " clad in the breast- 
plate of reverence and had ranged over against the 
numbers of the enemy the salutary and life-giving 
sign, to inspire his foes with terror and shield himself 
from harm." * We suspect, indeed, that far too httle 
justice has been done to the good generalship of 
Constantine, who, by his latest victory, brought to 
a close a brilliant and entirely successful campaign 
over an Emperor whose stubborn powers of resist- 

* De Vila Const., ii., 16. rd 6ooTr]piov xdi Zoooitoiov Grjf^eiov, 
w6TtEp Ti cpofirjxpov Kcci uaxwv d/zvvrrjpiov. 



The Downfall of Li cinius 131 

ance and dauntless energy even in defeat rendered 
him a most formidable opponent. 

Licinius fell back upon Nicomedia. His army 
was gone. There was no time to beat up new re- 
cruits, for the conqueror was hard upon his heels. 
He had to choose, therefore, between suicide, sub- 
mission, and flight. He would- perhaps have best 
consulted his fame had he chosen the proud Roman 
way out of irreparable disaster and taken his life. 
Instead he begged that life might be spared him. 
The request would have been hopeless, and would 
probably never have been made, had he not pos- 
sessed in his wife, Constantia, a very powerful advo- 
cate with her brother. Constantia's pleadings were 
effectual : Constantine consented to see his beaten 
antagonist, who came humbly into his presence, laid 
his purple at the victor's feet, and sued for life from 
the compassion of his master. It was a humiliating 
and an un-Roman scene. Constantine promised 
forgiveness, admitted the suppliant to the Imperial 
table, and then relegated him to Thessalonica to 
spend the remainder of his days in obscurity. Li- 
cinius did not long survive. Later historians, anx- 
ious to clear Constantine's character of every stain, 
accused Licinius of plotting against the generous 
Emperor who had spared him. Others declared 
that he fell in a soldiers' brawl : one even says that 
the Senate passed a decree devoting him to death. 
It is infinitely more probable that Constantine 
repented of his clemency. No Roman Emperor 
seems to have been able to endure for long the 
existence of a discrowned rival, however impotent 



132 Constantine 

to harm. Eutropius expressly states that Licinius 
was put to death in violation of the oath which Con- 
stantine had sworn to him.* Eusebius says not a 
word of Licinius's life having been promised him; 
he only remarks, " Then Constantine, dealing with 
the accursed of GOD and his associates according to 
the rules of war, handed them over to fitting pun- 
ishment."! A pretty euphemism for an act of 
assassination ! 

So died Licinius, unregretted by any save the 
zealous advocates of paganism, in the city where he 
himself had put to death those two hapless ladies, 
Prisca and Valeria. The best character sketch of 
him is found in Aurelius Victor, who describes him 
as grasping and avaricious, rough in manners and of 
excessively hasty temper, and a sworn foe to culture, 
which he used to say was a public poison and pest 
{virus et pestem publicum), notably the culture 
associated with the study and practice of the law. 
Himself of the humblest origin, he was a good friend 
to the small farmers' interests ; while he was a mar- 
tinet of the strictest type in all that related to the 
army. He detested the paraphernalia of a court, in 
which Constantine dehghted, and Aurelius Victor 
says that he made a clean sweep {vehejnens domitor) 
of all eunuchs and chamberlains, whom he described 
as the moths and shrew-mice of the palace {tineas 
soricesque palatii). Of his religious policy we shall 
speak elsewhere ; of his reign there is little to be 
said. It has left no impress upon history, and Li- 

* Contra religionem sacramenti pccisus est, x., 6, 
\De Vita Const., ii., i8. 



The Downfall of Llcinius 



^33 



cinius is only remembered as the Emperor whose 
misfortune it was to stand in the way of Constantino 
and his ambitions. Constantine threw down his 
statues; revoked his edicts; and if he spared his 
young son, the Caesar Licinianus, the clemency was 
due to affection for the mother, not to pity for the 
child. Martinianus, the Emperor at most of a few 
weeks, had been put to death after the defeat of 
Chrysopolis, and Constantine reigned alone with his 
sons. The Roman Empire was united once more. 




CHAPTER VIII 

LAST DAYS OF PERSECUTION 

IN a previous chapter we gave a brief account of 
the terrible sufferings inflicted upon the Church 
during the persecution which followed the edicts of 
Diocletian. They continued for many years almost 
without interruption, but with varying intensity. 
When, for example, Diocletian celebrated his Vicen- 
nalia a general amnesty was proclaimed which must 
have opened the prison doors to many thousands of 
Christians. Eusebius expressly states that the am- 
nesty was for " all who were in prison the world 
over," and there is no hint that liberty was made con- 
ditional upon apostasy. None the less, it is certain 
that a great number of Christians were still kept in 
the cells — on the pretext that they were specially 
obnoxious to the civil power — by governors of strong 
anti-Christian bias. The sword of persecution was 
speedily resumed and wielded as vigorously as before 
down to the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian. 
Then came another lull. With Constantius as the 
senior Augustus the persecution came to an end in 
the West, and even in the East there was an interval 
of peace. For Maximin, who was soon to develop 

134 



Last Days of Persecution 135 

into the most ferocious of all the persecutors, — so St. 
Jerome speaks of him in comparison with Decius and 
Diocletian, — gave a brief respite to the Christians in 
his provinces of Egypt, Cilicia, Palestine, and Syria. 

" When I first visited the East," Maximin wrote, * 
some years later, in referring to his accession, " I found 
that a great number of persons who might have been useful 
to the State had been exiled to various places by the 
judges. I ordered each one of these judges no longer to 
press hardly upon the provincials, but rather to exhort 
them by kindly words to return to the worship of the 
gods. While my orders were obeyed by the magistrates, 
no one in the countries of the East was exiled or ill- 
treated, but the provincials, won over by kindness, re- 
turned to the worship of the gods." 

Direct contradiction is given to this boast as to 
the number of Christian apostates by the fact that, 
within a twelvemonth, the new Caesar grew tired of 
seeking to kill Christianity by kindness and revoked 
his recent rescript of leniency. Maximin developed 
into a furious bigot. He fell wholly under the influ- 
ence of the more fanatical priests and became in- 
creasingly devoted to magic, divination, and the black 
arts. Lactantius declares that not a joint appeared 
at his table which had not been taken from some 
victim sacrificed by a priest at an altar and drenched 
with the wine of libation. Edict followed edict in 
rapid succession, until, in the middle of 306, what 
Eusebius describes as " a second declaration of war " 
was issued, which ordered every magistrate to compel 

* Eusebius, Hist, Eccles. , ix, , 9. 



136 Constantine 

all who lived within his jurisdiction to sacrifice to 
the gods on pain of being burnt alive. House to 
house visitations were set on foot that no creature 
might escape, and the common informer was encour- 
aged by large rewards to be active in his detestable 
occupation. It would seem indeed as if the Christ- 
ians in the provinces of Maximin suffered far more 
severely than any of their brethren. The most 
frightful bodily mutilations were practised. Batches 
of Christians were sentenced to work in the porphyry 
mines of Egypt or the copper mines of Phaenos in 
Palestine, after being hamstrung and having their 
right eyes burnt out with hot irons. The evidence 
of Lactantius, who says that the confessors had their 
eyes dug out, their hands and feet amputated, and 
their nostrils and ears cut off, is corroborated by 
Eusebius and the authors of the Passions. 

Palestine seems to have had two peculiarly brutal 
governors, Urbanus and Firmilianus. The latter in 
a single day presided at the execution of twelve 
Christians, pilgrims from Egypt on their way to suc- 
cour the unfortunate convicts in the copper mines 
of Palestine, whose deplorable condition had awak- 
ened the active sympathy of the Christian East. 
These bands of pilgrims had to pass through Cae- 
sarea, where the officers of Firmilianus were on the 
watch for them, and as soon as they confessed that 
they were Christians they were haled before the 
tribunal, where their doom was certain. A distin- 
guishing feature of the persecution in the provinces 
of Maximin was the frequency of outrages upon 
Christian women and the fortitude with which many 



Last Days of Persecution 137 

of the victims committed suicide rather than suffer 
pollution. The story of St. Pelagia of Antioch is 
typical. Maximin sent some soldiers to conduct 
her to his palace. They found her alone in her 
house and announced their errand. With perfect 
composure this girl of fifteen asked permission to re- 
tire in order to change her dress, and then, mount- 
ing to the roof, threw herself down into the street 
below. Eusebius, himself an eye-witness of this per- 
secution, gives many a vivid story of the fury of 
Maximin and his officials, and of the cold-blooded 
calculation with which he sought to draw new vic- 
tims into the net of the law. In 308 he issued an 
edict ordering every city and village thoroughly to 
repair any temple which, for whatever reason, had 
been allowed to fall into ruins. He increased ten- 
fold the number of priesthoods, and insisted upon 
daily sacrifices. The magistrates were again strictly 
enjoined to compel men, women, children, and slaves 
alike to offer sacrifice and partake of the sacrificial 
food. All goods exposed for sale in the public 
markets were to be sprinkled with lustral water, and 
even at the entrance to the public baths, officials 
were to be placed to see that no one passed through 
the doors without throwing a few grains of incense 
on the altar. Maximin, in short, was a religious 
bigot, who combined with a zealous observance of 
pagan ritual a consuming hatred of Christianity. 

There are not many records of what was taking 
place in the provinces of Galerius, while Maximin 
was thus terrorising Syria and Egypt. But the 
Emperor had begun to see that the persecution, 



138 Constantine 

upon which he had entered with such zest some 
years before, was bound to end in failure. The ter- 
rible malady which attacked him in 310 would tend 
to confirm his forebodings. Like Antiochus Epi- 
phanius, Herod the Great, and Herod Agrippa, 
Galerius became, before death released him from his 
agony, a putrescent and loathsome spectacle. His 
physicians could do nothing for him. Imploring 
deputations were sent to beg the aid of Apollo and 
^sculapius. Apollo prescribed a remedy, but the 
application only left the patient worse, and Lactan- 
tius quotes with powerful effect the lines from Vir- 
gil which describe Laocoon in the toils of the ser- 
pents, raising horror-stricken cries to Heaven, like 
some wounded bull as it flies bellowing from the 
altar. Was it when broken by a year's constant an- 
guish that Galerius exclaimed that he would restore 
the temple of God and make amends for his sin? 
Was he, as Lactantius says, " compelled to confess 
GOD " ? Whether that be so or not, here is the re- 
markable edict which the shattered Emperor found 
strength to dictate. It deserves to be given in full : 

" Among the measures which we have constantly taken 
for the well-being and advantage of the State, we had 
wished to regulate everything according to the ancient 
laws and public discipline of the Romans, and especially 
to provide that the Christians, who had abandoned the 
religion of their ancestors, should return to a better frame 
of mind. 

" For, from whatever reason, these Christians were the 
victims of such wilfulness and folly that they not only 
refused to follow the ancient customs, which very likely 



Last Days of Persecution 139 

their own forefathers had instituted, but they made laws 
for themselves according to their fancy and caprice, 
and gathered together all kinds of people in different 
places. 

" Eventually, when our commands had been published 
that they should conform to long established custom, 
many submitted from fear, and many more under the 
compulsion of punishment. 

" But since the majority have obstinately held out and 
we see that they neither give the gods their worship and 
due, nor yet adore the God of the Christians, we have 
taken into consideration our unexampled clemency and 
followed the dictation of the invariable mercifulness, 
which we shew to all men. 

" We have, therefore, thought it best to extend even to 
these people our fullest indulgence and to give* them 
leave once more to be Christians, and rebuild their 
meeting places, provided that they do nothing contrary 
to discipline. 

" In another letter we shall make clear to the magis- 
trates the course which they should pursue. 

"In return for our indulgence the Christians will, in 
duty bound, pray to their God for our safety, for their 
own, and for that of the State, that so the State may 
everywhere be safe and prosperous, and that they them- 
selves may dwell in security in their homes." 

This extraordinary edict was issued at Nicomedia 
on the last day of April, 311. It is as abject a con- 
fession of failure as could be expected from an 
Emperor. Galerius admits that the majority of 



'^Ut denuo sint Christiani et conventicula componant, ita ut ne 
quid contra disciplinam agant. 



140 Constantine 

Christians have stubbornly held to their faith in spite 
of bitter persecution, and now, as they are deter- 
mined to sin against the light and follow their own 
caprice, more in sorrow than in anger, he will 
recognise their status as Christians and give them 
the right of assembly, provided they do not offend 
against public disciphne. But the special interest 
of this edict lies in the Emperor's request that the 
Christians will pray for him, in the despairing hope 
that Christ may succeed, where Apollo has failed, 
in finding a remedy for his grievous case. Galerius 
was ready to clutch at any passing straw. 

The edict bore the names of Galerius, of Constan- 
tine, and of Licinius. Maxentius, who at this time 
ruled Italy, was not recognised by Galerius, so the 
absence of his name causes no surprise. Maximin's 
name is also absent, but we find one of his praefects, 
Sabinus, addressing shortly afterwards a circular 
letter to all the Governors of Cilicia, Syria, and 
Egypt, in which the signal was given to stop the 
persecution. Like Galerius, Maximin declared that 
the sole object of the Emperors had been to lead all 
men back to a pious and regular life, and to restore 
to the gods those who had embraced alien rites con- 
trary to the spirit of the institutions of Rome. Then 
the letter continued : 

" But since the mad obstinacy of certain people has 
reached such a pitch that they are not to be shaken 
in their resolution either by the justice of the imperial 
command or by the fear of imminent punishment, and 
since, actuated by these motives, a very large number 
have brought themselves into positions of extreme peril, 



Last Days of Persecution 141 

it has pleased their Majesties in their great pity and 
compassion to send this letter to your Excellency. 

" Their instructions are that if any Christian has been 
apprehended, while observing the religion of his sect, 
you are to deliver him from all molestation and annoy- 
ance and not to inflict any penalty upon him, for a very 
long experience has convinced the Emperors that there 
is no method of turning these people from their madness. 

" Your Excellency will therefore write to the magis- 
trates, to the commander of the forces, and to the town 
provosts, in each city, that they may know for the future 
that they are not to interfere with the Christians any 
more." 

In other words, the prisons were to be emptied 
and the mad sectaries to be let alone. The bigot 
was obliged to bow, however reluctantly, to the 
wishes and commands of the senior Augustus, even 
though Galerius was a broken and dying man. 

Nevertheless, within six months we find Maximin 
devising new schemes for troubling the Christians. 
Eusebius tells us with what joy the edict of tolera- 
tion had been welcomed, with what triumph the 
Christians had quitted their prisons, and with what 
enthusiastic exultation the bands of Christian con- 
fessors, returning from the mines to their own towns 
and villages, were received by the Christian com- 
munities in the places through which they passed. 
Those whose testimony to their faith had not been so 
sure and clear, those who had bowed the knee to Baal 
under the shadow of torture and death, humbly ap- 
proached their stouter-hearted brethren and implored 
their intercession. The Church rose from the 



H2 Constantine 

persecution proudly and confidently, and with in- 
credible speed renewed its suspended services and 
repaired its broken organisation. Maximin issued an 
order forbidding Christians to assemble after dark in 
their cemeteries, as they had been in the habit of 
doing, in order to celebrate the victory of their mar- 
tyrs over death. Such assemblies, the Emperor 
said, were subversive of morality: they were to be 
allowed no more. This must have warned the Chris- 
tians how little reliance was to be placed in the 
promises of Maximin, and shortly afterwards they had 
another warning. Maximin made a tour through his 
provinces and in several cities received petitions in 
which he was urged to give an order for the absolute 
expulsion of all Christians. No doubt it was known 
that such a request would be well pleasing to Maximin, 
but at the same time it undoubtedly points to the ex- 
istence of a strong anti-Christian feeling. At Antioch, 
which was under the governorship of Theotecnus, the 
petitioners, according to Eusebius, said that the ex- 
pulsion of the Christians would be the greatest boon 
the Emperor could confer upon them, but the full 
text of one of these petitions has been found among 
the ruins of a small Lycian township of the name of 
Aricanda. It runs as follows : 

" To the Saviours of the entire human race, to the au- 
gust Caesars, Galerius Valerius Maximinus. Flavius 
Valerius Constantinus, Valerius Licinianus Licinius, this 
petition is addressed by the people of the Lycians and 
the Pamphylians. 

** Inasmuch as the gods, your congeners, divine 



Last Days of Persecution 143 

Emperor, have always crowned with their manifest 
favours those who have their religion at heart and 
oifer prayers to them for the perpetual safety of our 
invincible masters, we have thought it well to approach 
your immortal Majesty and to ask that the Christians, 
who for years have been impious and do not cease to be 
so, may be finally suppressed and transgress no longer, 
by their wicked and innovating cult, the respect that is 
owing to the gods. 

" This result would be attained if their impious rites 
were forbidden and suppressed by your divine and eter- 
nal decree, and if they were compelled to practise the 
cult of the gods, your congeners, and pray to them on 
behalf of your eternal and incorruptible Majesty. This 
would clearly be to the advantage and profit of all your 
subjects." 

Eusebius records two replies of the Emperor to 
petitions of this character. One is contained in a 
letter to his praefect, Sabinus, and relates to Nico- 
media. The other is a document copied by Eusebius 
from a bronze tablet set up on a column in Tyre. 
Maximin expatiates at great length on the debt 
which men owe to the gods, and especially to Jupiter, 
the presiding deity of Tyre, for the ordered succes- 
sion of the seasons, and for keeping within their ap- 
pointed bounds the overwhelming forces of Nature. 
If there have been calamities and cataclysms, to 
what else, he asks, can they be attributed than to 
the "vain and pestilential errors of the villainous 
Christians ? " Those who have apostatised and have 
been delivered from their blindness are like people 
who have escaped from a furious storm or have been 



144 Constantine 

cured of some deadly malady. To them life offers 
once more its bounteous blessings. Then the Em- 
peror continues : 

" But if they still persist in their detestable errors, they 
shall be banished, in accordance with your petition, far 
from your city and your territory, that so this city of 
Tyre, completely purified, as you most properly desire it 
to be, may yield itself wholly to the worship of the gods. 

"But that you may know how agreeable your petition 
has been to us, and how, even without petition on your 
part, we are disposed to heap favours upon you, we grant 
you in advance any favour you shall ask, however great, 
in reward for your piety. 

" Ask, therefore, and receive, and do so without hesita- 
tion. The benefit which shall accrue to your city will 
be a perpetual witness of your devotion to the gods." 

Evidently the Christians had not yet come to the 
end of their troubles. Those who read this circular 
letter, for it seems to have been sent round from city 
to city, must have expected the persecution to break 
out anew at any moment. We do not know to what 
extent the edict was observed. If it had been 
generally acted upon, we should certainly have heard 
more of it, inasmuch as it must have entailed a wide- 
spread exodus from the provinces of Maximin. But 
of this there is no evidence. We imagine rather that 
this circular was merely a preliminary sharpening of 
the sword in order to keep the Christians in a due 
state of apprehension. 

Maximin, however, continued his anti-Christian 
propaganda with unabated zeal, and with greater 



Last Days of Persecution i45 

cunning and better devised system than before. His 
court at Antioch was the gathering place of all the 
priests, magicians, and thaumaturgists of the East, 
who found in him a generous patron. We hear of a 
new deity being invented by Theotecnus, or rather 
of an old deity being invested with new attributes. 
Zeus Philios, or Jupiter the Friendly was the name 
of this god, to whom a splendid statue was erected 
in Antioch, and to whose shrine a new priesthood, 
with new rites, was solemnly dedicated. The god 
was provided with an attendant oracle to speak in 
his name ; what more natural than that the first re- 
sponse should order the banishment of all Christians 
from the city ? Very noteworthy, too, was the re- 
appearance of a vigorous anti-Christian literature. 
Maximin set on his pamphleteers to write libellous 
parodies of the Christian doctrines and encouraged 
the more serious controversialists on the pagan 
side to attack the Christian religion wherever it was 
most vulnerable. The most famous of these produc- 
tions was one which bore the name of The Acts of 
Pilate and purported to be a relation by Pilate 
himself of the life and conduct of Christ. It was 
really an old pamphlet rewritten and brought up to 
date, full, as Eusebius says, of all conceivable blas- 
phemy against Christ and reducing Him to the level 
of a common malefactor. Maximin welcomed it 
with delight. He had thousands of copies written 
and distributed; extracts were cut on brass and 
stone and posted up in conspicuous places ; the work 
was appointed to be read frequently in pubHc, and — 
what shews most of all the fury and cunning of 



146 Constantine 

Maximin — it was appointed to be used as a text-book 
in schools throughout Asia and Egypt. There was 
no more subtle method of training bigots and poi- 
soning the minds of the younger generation amongst 
Christianity. Some of the Emperor's devices, how- 
ever, were much more crude. For example, the 
military commandant of Damascus arrested half a 
dozen notorious women of the town and threatened 
them with torture if they did not confess that they 
were Christians, and that they had been present at 
ceremonies of the grossest impurity in the Christian 
assemblies. Maximin ordered the precious confes- 
sion thus extorted to be set up in a prominent place 
in every township. 

But the Emperor was not merely a furious bigot. 
There is evidence that he fully recognised the won- 
derful strength of the Christian ecclesiastical organ- 
isation and contrasted it with the essential weakness 
of the pagan system. In this he anticipated the 
Emperor Julian. Paganism was anything but a 
church. Its framework was loose and disconnected. 
There were various colleges of priests, some of 
which were powerful and had branches throughout 
the Empire, but there was little connection between 
them save that of a common ritual. There was also 
little doctrine save in the special mysteries, where 
membership was preceded by formal initiation. 
Maximin sought to institute a pagan clergy based 
upon the Christian model, with a definite hierarchy 
from the highest to the lowest. There were already 
chief priests of the various provinces, who had borne 
for long the titles of Asiarch, Pontarch, Galatarch, 



Last Days of Persecution 147 

and Ciliciarch in their respective provinces. Maximin 
developed their powers on the model of those of the 
Christian bishops, giving them authority over sub- 
ordinates and entrusting them with the duty of 
seeing that the sacrifices were duly and regularly 
offered. He tried to raise the standard of the priest- 
hood by choosing its members from the best families, 
by insisting on the priests wearing white flowing 
robes, by giving them a guard of soldiers and full 
powers of search and arrest. 

Evidently, Maximin was something more than 
the lustful, bloodthirsty tyrant who appears in 
the pages of Lactantius and the ecclesiastical his- 
torians. He dealt the Church much shrewder — 
though not less ineffectual — blows than his col- 
leagues in persecution. With such an Emperor 
another appeal to the faggot and the sword was 
inevitable, and the death of Galerius was the 
signal for a renewal of the persecution. This time 
Maximin struck directly at the most conspicuous 
figures in the Christian Church and counted among 
his victims Peter, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and 
three other Egyptian bishops — Methodus, Bishop of 
Tyre, Basiliscus, Bishop of Comana in Bithynia, and 
Silvanus, Bishop of Emesa in Phoenicia. In Egypt 
the persecution was so sharp that it drew Saint 
Antony from his hermit's cell in the desert to suc- 
cour the unfortunate in Alexandria. He escaped 
with his life, probably because he was overlooked or 
disdained, or because the mighty influence which he 
was to exercise upon the Church had not yet declared 
itself. This persecution was followed by a terrible 



148 Constantine 

drought, famine, and pestilence. Eusebius,* in a 
vigorous chapter, describes how parents were driven 
by hunger to sell not only their lands but also their 
children, how whole families were wiped out, how 
the pestilence seemed to mark down the rich for its 
special vengeance, and how in certain townships the 
inhabitants were driven to kill all the dogs within 
their walls that they might not feed on the bodies of 
the unburied dead. Amid these horrors the Christ- 
ians alone remained calm. They alone displayed the 
supreme virtue of charity in tending the suffering and 
ministering to the dying. From the pagans them- 
selves, says Eusebius, was wrung the unwilling admis- 
sion that none but the Christians, in the sharp test 
of adversity, shewed real piety and genuine worship 
of God.f 

Maximin's reign, however, was fast drawing to a 
close. After becoming involved in a war with Tiri- 
dates of Armenia, from which he emerged with little 
credit to himself, he entered into an alliance with 
Maxentius, the ruler of Italy, against Constantine 
and Licinius, but did not invade the territory 
of the latter until Maxentius had already been over- 
thrown. As we have seen, Maximin was utterly 
routed and, after a hurried flight to beyond the 
Taurus, he there, according to Eusebius,:]: gathered 
together his erstwhile trusted priests, thaumaturgists, 
and soothsayers, and slew them for the proved false- 



* Hist. Eccles., ix. , 8. 

f EvdsfSsii TS Kcxt /iiovovi Qsods/SEi? rovrovi dXijQw?, TCpoi 
avTc^v IA£;^;);9£VraS ro3r TtpayjudrcoVf ojuoXoyelv, 
I Jlist, Eccles.^ ix., 10, 



Last Days of Persecution 149 

hood of their prophecy. More significant still, when 
he found that his doom was certain, he issued a last 
religious edict in the vain hope of appeasing the 
resentment of the Christians and their God. The 
document is worth giving in full: 

" The Emperor Csesar Caius Valerius Maximinus, Ger- 
manicus, Sarmaticus, pious, happy, invincible, august. 

" We have always endeavoured by all means in our 
power to secure the advantage of those who dwell in our 
provinces, and to contribute by our benefits at once to 
the prosperity of the State and to the well-being of every 
citizen. Nobody can be ignorant of this, and we are 
confident that each one who puts his memory to the test, 
is persuaded of its truth. 

" We found, however, some time ago that, in virtue of 
the edict published by our divine parents, Diocletian and 
Maximian, ordering the destruction of the places where 
the Christians were in the habit of assembling, many 
excesses and acts of violence had been committed by our 
public servants and that the evil was being increasingly 
felt by our subjects every day, inasmuch as their goods 
were, under this pretext, unwarrantably seized. 

"Consequently, we declared last year by letters addressed 
to the Governors of the Provinces that if any one wished 
to attach himself to this sect and practise this religion, he 
should be allowed to please himself without interference 
and no one should say him nay, and the Christians 
should enjoy complete liberty and be sheltered from all 
fear and all suspicion. 

" However, we have not been able entirely to shut our 
eyes to the fact that certain of the magistrates misunder- 
stood our instructions, with the result that our subjects 
distrusted our words and were nervous about resuming 



150 Constantine 

the religion of their choice. That is why, in order to do 
away with all disquietude and equivocation for the future, 
we have resolved to publish this edict, by which all are 
to understand that those who wish to follow this sect 
have full liberty to do so, and that, by the indulgence of 
our Majesty, each man may practise the religion he pre- 
fers or that to which he is accustomed. 

" It is also permitted to them to rebuild the houses of 
the LORD. Moreover, so that there may be no mistake 
about the scope of our indulgence, we have been pleased 
to order that all houses and places, formerly belonging 
to the Christians, which have either been confiscated by 
the order of our divine parents, or occupied by any 
municipality, or sold or given away, shall return to their 
original ownership, so that all men may recognise our 
piety and our solicitude." 

The bigot must have been brought very low and 
reduced to the last depths of despair before he set 
his seal to such a document as this. One can see 
that it was drawn up by Maximin with a copy of the 
Edict of Milan before him, and that he hoped, by 
this tardy and clumsy recognition of the principle of 
absolute liberty of conscience for all men, to make 
the Christians forget his brutalities. Doubtless, the 
Christians of Cilicia and Syria looked to Constantine 
in far off Gaul as a model prince and emperor, and 
heard with joy of the steady advance of Constantine's 
ally, Licinius. The latter would come in their eyes 
in the guise of a liberator, and prayers for his success 
would be offered up in every Christian church of the 
persecuted East. Maximin sought to repurchase their 
loyalty : it was too late. His absurd pretext that his 



Last Days of Persecution 



i=;i 



orders had been misunderstood by his provincial 
governors would deceive no one. He had been the 
shrewdest enemy with whom the Church had had to 
cope; his edict of recantation was read with chilly 
suspicion or cold contempt, which was changed into 
hymns of rejoicing when the Christians heard that 
the tyrant had poisoned himself and died in agony, 
while his conqueror, Licinius, had drowned the fallen 
Empress in the Orontes and put to death her child- 
ren, a boy of eight and a girl of seven. Those who 
had suffered persecution for ten years may be par- 
doned their exultation that there was no one left 
alive to perpetuate the names of their persecutors.* 
Throughout this time the West had escaped very 
lightly. Even Maxentius had begun his reign by 
seeking to secure the good-will of the Christians. 
Eusebius, indeed, makes the incredible statement f 
that in order to please and flatter the Roman people 
he pretended to embrace the Christian faith and 
" assumed the mask of piety." Probably all he did 
was to leave the Christians of Rome in peace. The 
chair of St. Peter had remained empty for four years . 
after the death of Bishop Marcellinus. In 308 Mar- 
cellus was elected to fill it and the Church was 
organised afresh. But it was rent with internal dis- 
sensions. There was a large section which insisted 
that the brethren who had been found weak during 
the recent persecution should be received back into 



* JIoc modo deus universes persecutores nominis sui debellavit, ut 
eorum nee stirps nee radix ulla remaneret. — De Mart. Per sec, 
c. 49. 

^ Hist. Eceles., viii,, 14. 



152 Constantine 

the fold without penance and reproach. Marcellus 
stood out for discipline ; the quarrel became so ex- 
acerbated that Maxentius exiled the Bishop, who 
shortly afterwards died. A priest named Eusebius 
was then chosen Pontiff, but the schismatics elected 
a Pontiff of their own, Heraclius by name, and the 
rival partisans quarrelled and fought in the streets. 
Maxentius, with strict impartiality, exiled both. 
The record of this schism is preserved in the curious 
epitaph composed by Pope Damasus for the tomb 
of Eusebius : 

"Heraclius forbade the lapsed to bewail their sins; 
Eusebius taught them to repent and weep for their 
wrong-doing. The people were divided into factions, 
raging and furious: then came sedition, bloodshed, war, 
discord, strife.* Forthwith both were driven away by 
the cruelty of the tyrant. While the Bishop preserved 
intact the bonds of peace, he endured his exile gladly 
on the Trinacrian shores, knowing that God was his 
judge, and so passed from this world and from life." 

On the confession of Damasus himself, the state 
of the Roman Church warranted the interference of 
Maxentius if it resulted in "sedition, bloodshed, 
war, discord, and strife," and the " cruelty of the ty- 
rant " in this particular case is not proven. Euse- 
bius died in Sicily in 310; in the following year 
Miltiades was elected Bishop, and Maxentius re- 
stored to the Roman Christians their churches and 
cemeteries, which for eight years had been in the 
hands of the civil authorities. 

* Scinditiir in partes populus gliscenie furore; Seditio, cades, hel- 
ium, discordia, lites. 



Last Days of Persecution i53 

The overthrow of Maxentius by Constantine, the 
destruction of Maximin by Licinius, the publication 
of the Edict of Milan, and the apparent sincerity of 
the two Emperors in their anxiety to restore peace 
and security, were naturally hailed by the Christ- 
ians throughout the Empire with the liveliest joy. 
On every side stately churches began to rise from 
the ground, and as the triumph of Christianity over 
its enemies was incontestable, converts came flocking 
in by the thousand to receive what Eusebius calls 
" the mysterious signs of the Saviour's Passion." The 
only troublers of the Church were members of the 
Church herself, like the extravagant Donatists in 
Africa. The canons of the Council of Ancyra, which 
was held soon after the death of Maximin, shew 
how the ecclesiastical authorities imposed varying 
penances upon those who had shrunk from their 
duty as soldiers of Christ in the recent persecution, 
varying, that is to say, according to the extent 
of their shortcomings. Some had apostatised and 
themselves turned persecutors ; some had sacrificed 
at the first command ; some had endured prison, but 
had shrunk from torture; some had suffered torture, 
but quailed before the stake ; some had bribed the 
executioners only to make a show of torturing them ; 
some had attended the sacrificial feasts, but had sub- 
stituted other meats. The punishments range from 
ten years of probation and every degree of penance, 
down to a few months' deprivation of the comforts 
and communions of the Church. 

New dangers, however, speedily threatened. Con- 
stantine and Licinius quarrelled between themselves 



154 Constantine 

and, after two stubborn battles, agreed upon a fresh 
division of the world. For eight years, from 315 to 
323, this partition lasted, but, as the Emperors again 
drifted apart, Licinius became more and more anti- 
Christian. His rivalry with Constantine accounts for 
the change. Licinius suspected Constantine of in- 
triguing with his Christian subjects just as Constan- 
tine regarded the pagan element in his own provinces 
as the natural focus of disaffection against his rule. 
Licinius had no definite Christian beliefs; he had 
been the friend and nominee of Galerius ; and, like 
Galerius, he never got rid of the suspicion that the 
Christian assemblies were a danger to the public 
security. The Christians had aided him against 
Maximin : he thought they would do the same for 
Constantine against himself. Eusebius"^ likens him 
to a twisted snake, wriggling along and concealing 
its poisoned fangs, not daring to attack the Church 
openly for fear of Constantine, but dealing it con- 
stant and insidious blows. 

The simile was well chosen. Licinius seems to 
have opened his campaign against the Christians by 
forbidding the bishops in his provinces to leave their 
dioceses and take part in their usual synods and 
councils. They were to remain at home, he said, 
and mind their own business and not plot treason 
against their Emperor under the pretext of perfecting 
the discipline of the Church. Another edict, which 
came with poor grace from a man whose own 
excesses were notorious, forbade Christian men and 
women to meet for common worship in their 

* De Vita Constant., ii,, I, 



Last Days of Persecution 155 

churches : they were to worship apart, so that their 
morals might not be exposed to danger. On the same 
pretext, bishops and priests were only allowed to give 
teaching and consolation to their own sex ; Christian 
women must find women teachers and advisers. Eu- 
sebius tells us* that these edicts excited universal 
ridicule. It was too late to revive the old stories of 
gross immorality taking place at the communion 
services, and there was fresh cause for mocking laugh- 
ter when Licinius forbade the Christians to assemble 
in their churches within the towns and ordered them 
to go outside the gates and meet, if they must meet, 
in the open air. This was necessary, he said, on the 
grounds of public health ; the atmosphere beyond 
the gates was purer. Licinius's theory of hygiene was 
perfectly sound ; its application was ludicrous. 

These were the first steps leading, as his subjects 
must have known only too well, straight to persecu- 
tion. After a time Licinius threw over bodily the 
Edict of Milan. He purged his court and his army 
in the old way. The choice was sacrifice or dismissal, 
and some pretext was usually made to tack on to 
official dismissal a confiscation of goods. Licinius, 
says Eusebius, thirsted for gold like a very Tanta- 
lus. Aurelius Victor saysf he had all the mean, 
sordid avarice of a peasant. And the Christians, of 
course, were fair game. He pillaged their churches, 
robbed them of their goods, sentenced them to exile 
and to the mines, or ruined them just as effectually 
by insisting on their becoming magistrates. Blood- 

* De Vita Constant., i., 53. 

\ Huic parcUnonia et ea quidem agrestis. 



156 Constantine 

shed followed, and Licinius aimed his severest 
blows at the bishops. He accused them of omitting 
his name in their prayers for the welfare of the Em- 
peror and the State, though they carefully remem- 
bered that of Constantine ; and, if none were actually 
put to death, many suffered imprisonment, torture, 
and mutilation. The story of the martyrs and con- 
fessors in the Licinian persecution is very like that 
of those who suffered under Diocletian and Maximin. 
But the fate of the forty soldier martyrs of the 
Twelfth Legion {Fuhninatd) deserves special men- 
tion. They had refused to sacrifice, and, by order of 
their general, were stripped naked and ordered to 
remain throughout a winter's night upon a frozen 
pond, exposed to the elements. At the side of the 
pond was a building, where the water for the town 
baths was heated. Apparently no guard was kept. 
The martyrs were free to make their way to the 
warmth and shelter if they wished it, but only at 
the price of apostasy. One of them, after enduring 
bravely for many hours, crawled towards the warmth, 
but died of exhaustion as soon as he had crossed the 
threshold. The sight so affected the pagan attend- 
ant of the bath that he flung off his clothes in uncon- 
trollable emotion, and with the shout, " I too am a 
Christian," took the place of the weak brother who 
had just lost the martyr's crown. In the morning 
the forty were found dead and their bodies were 
burnt at the stake. It was said that one of them 
was found to be still breathing, and the executioners 
put him apart from the rest. His mother, afraid lest 
he should miss entering heaven by the side of his 



Last Days of Persecution i57 

brave companions in glory, herself placed him in the 
cart to be borne to the stake. 

Another moving story of the Licinian persecution 
is that of Gordius of Caesarea, in Cappadocia. He 
had fled from his home to Hve the life of a hermit 
among the mountains, when suddenly an impulse 
came upon him to return and testify to the truth. 
The people were all assembled in the Circus, intent 
upon some public spectacle, when an uncouth figure 
was seen to move slowly down the marble steps and 
then pass out into the centre of the arena. A hush 
fell upon the multitude, as the hermit was recognised 
and dragged before the tribunal of the Governor. " I 
have come," he said, "to shew how little I think of 
your edicts and to confess my faith in Jesus Christ, 
and I have chosen this moment, O Governor, be- 
cause I know your cruelty, which surpasses that of 
all other men." They put him to the torture: he 
delighted in his pain. " The more you torture me," 
he said, " the greater will be my reward. There is a 
bargain between God and us. Each pang and tor- 
ment that we suffer here will be rewarded there by 
increased glory and happiness." 

Licinius had thus, like Maximin, made himself the 
champion of the old religion and the religious reac- 
tionaries. When in 323 war again broke out between 
himself and Constantine, it was as the professed en- 
emy of Christianity and its God that he took the 
field. The war was a war of ambition on both sides, 
but it was also a war between the two religions. We 
have mentioned elsewhere the oath which Licinius 
took before the battle, when he vowed that if the 



158 Constantine 

gods gave him the victory he would extirpate root 
and branch the Christian religion. Fate gave him 
no opportunity to fulfil his promise. Defeated at 
Adrianople and at ChrysopoHs, and then exiled to 
Thessalonica, Licinius had not many months to 
live. Before he died he saw his pagan councillors 
pay for their folly with their lives and heard the re- 
joicings of the Christians of the East at the fall of 
the last of their pagan persecutors. The Church at 
last had won her freedom and was to suffer at the 
hands of the State no more. Eusebius has fortu- 
nately preserved for us the text of the edict addressed 
by Constantine after his victory to the inhabitants 
of Palestine, recalling from exile, from the mines, 
and from servitude the Christian victims of the 
recent persecution, restoring their property to those 
who had suffered confiscation, offering to soldiers 
who had been expelled in disgrace from the army 
either a return to their old rank or the certificate 
of honourable discharge, and giving back to the 
churches without diminution the corporate posses- 
sions of which they had been robbed. Constantine 
not merely passed the sponge over the administrative 
acts of Licinius : he granted large subsidies to the 
bishops who had suffered at the hands of " the dra- 
gon," and himself wrote to "his dearest beloved 
brother," Eusebius of Csesarea, urging him to see 
that the bishops, elders, and deacons in his neigh- 
bourhood were " active and enthusiastic in the work 
of the Church." * 



* 67tov5d?^eiv TCEpi rd epya rcSv kHHXr]6i(Sv, — De Vita Const,., 
ii., 46. 




CHAPTER IX 

CONSTANTINE AND THE DONATISTS 

IF Constantine hoped that by the Edict of Milan 
he had stilled the voice of religious controversy, 
he was speedily disillusioned. He was now to find 
the peace of the Church violently disturbed by those 
belonging to her communions, and the hatreds of 
Christians against one another almost as menacing 
to the tranquillity of the imperial rule as had been 
the bitter strife of pagan and Christian. In the same 
year (313) he received an appeal from certain African 
bishops imploring him to appoint a commission of 
Gallican bishops to settle certain difificulties which 
had arisen in Africa. The Donatist schism, which was 
destined to last for more than a century, had begun. 
Its rise may be traced in a few words. Northern 
Africa had long been the home of a perfervid religious 
fanaticism. Montanism and Novatianism had found 
there their most violent adherents, to whom there 
was something peculiarly attractive in extravagant 
protest against the laxity or the liberalism of the 
Church elsewhere, and in emphatic insistence on the 
narrowness of the way which leads to salvation. 
Those who set up the most impossible standard of 

159 



i6o Constantine 

attainment ; those who demanded from the Christian 
the most absolute spotlessness of Hfe ; those who 
insisted most strenuously on the enormity of sin and 
made fewest allowances for the weakness of humanity 
— these were surest of being heard most gladly in 
northern Africa. During the persecution of Dio- 
cletian and Maximian many of the African Christians 
had ostentatiously courted martyrdom. According 
to Catholic authors, such martyrdom had been sought 
not only by saints, but by men of immoral and dis- 
solute life, who thought to purge the stains of a sinful 
career by dying in the odour of sanctity. Others, 
again, while not prepared to die for the faith, were 
not unwilling to suffer imprisonment for it, inasmuch 
as their fellow-Christians looked well after the 
creature comforts of those who languished in gaol. 
Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa, 
strongly disapproved of these proceedings. He dis- 
countenanced the fanaticism, which he knew to be 
the besetting weakness of his people ; refused to 
recognise as martyrs those who had provoked death ; 
and checked, as far as possible, the indiscriminate 
charity of his flock. If his critics are to be beheved, 
Mensurius had resort to a trick in order to save the 
Holy Books of his own cathedral and thus escape 
the choice of being a traditor or of suffering for con- 
science' sake. It was said that when the officers of 
the civil power demanded the Holy Books in his 
keeping, he handed over to them a number of heretical 
volumes, which were at once burnt, while the Sacred 
Scriptures were carefully concealed. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, to find that Mensurius was charged 



Constantine and the Donatists i6i 

with actual persecution of those Christians who had 
a sterner sense of duty than himself. 

It is manifest, however, from what took place at a 
synod of bishops held in Cirta in 305 that many of 
the natural leaders of the African Church had quailed 
before the persecution of Diocletian. They had 
assembled, under the presidency of Secundus, Bishop 
of Tigisis and Primate of Numidia, in order to fill 
the vacant see of Cirta. Secundus opened the pro- 
ceedings by inviting all present to clear themselves 
of the charge of having surrendered their Holy 
Books, and began to put the question directly to 
each in turn. Donatus of Mascula returned an 
evasive answer, and said that he was responsible only 
to God. Many pleaded that they had substituted 
other books for the Scriptures ; Victor of Russicas 
alone confessed that he had handed over the Four 
Gospels. " Valentinianus, the Curator, himself com- 
pelled me to send them," he said ; "pardon me this 
fault, even as God pardons me." Then came the 
turn of Purpurius, Bishop of Limata. Secundus 
accused him not of being a traditor, but of the murder 
of two of his nephews. Purpurius stormed with rage. 
He vowed that he would not be browbeaten, and 
declared that Secundus was no better than his fel- 
lows and had purchased his own immunity, like the 
rest of them, by surrendering the Scriptures. As for 
murdering his nephews, the charge was true. " I did 
kill them," he said, " and I kill all who stand in my 
way. " This candid avowal seems to have occasioned 
no surprise among the members of this extraordinary 
synod ; they were all too indignant with Secundus 



1 62 Constantine 

for raising inconvenient questions and pretending to 
a sanctity beyond his colleagues. Eventually, another 
nephew of Secundus threatened that they would all 
withdraw from his communion and make a schism 
{recedere et schisma facere), unless he let the matter 
drop. " What business is it of yours what each has 
done? " asked the outspoken nephew. "It is to God 
that each must tender his account." The president 
thereupon drew in his horns, pronounced the acquit- 
tal of the accused, and with a general murmur of 
^' Deo gratias,'' they proceeded to the election of a 
bishop. Their choice fell upon Sylvanus, himself a 
traditor, much, it is said, to the indignation of the 
people of Cirta, who raised cries of, " He is a traditor : 
let another be elected. We want our bishop to be 
pure and upright." Sylvanus had surrendered, with- 
out even a show of compulsion, one of the sacred 
silver lamps from the altar of his church. It is more 
than possible that the report of the proceedings at 
this synod, which is found only in works written 
specifically — but by episcopal hands — against the 
Donatists, is highly exaggerated. Among the bishops 
present at Cirta were those who, a few years later, 
were the principal leaders of the Donatist schism. 
But, even when all allowances are made for party 
colouring, the picture it gives of the Numidian 
Church is far from flattering. 

During the life of Mensurius overt schism was 
avoided, though the Church of Carthage was by no 
means untroubled. For even before the persecution 
broke out, a certain lady named Lucilla had fallen 
under the censure of the ecclesiastical authorities, 



Constantine and the Donatists 163 

and had left the fold in high dudgeon. She became 
the lady patroness of the malcontent Christians of 
Carthage and the prime mover in any ecclesiastical 
intrigue that was afoot. She had been wont, before 
taking the Eucharist, to kiss the doubtful relic of a 
martyr, and she had set greater store on the ef^licacy 
of this unregistered bone than on the virtues of the 
sacred chalice. It was not, of course, for relic wor- 
ship that Caecilianus, the Archdeacon, rebuked her, 
for the early Church everywhere acknowledged its 
intercessional value, and it was the usual practice for 
an officiating priest, before celebrating, to kiss the 
relics that were placed on the high altar. Lucilla 
was reproved because her relic was not recognised 
by the Church.* It was doubtful whether it had be- 
longed to a martyr at all, and, in any case, its iden- 
tity had not been duly authenticated. But before 
Mensurius could deal with this revolted daughter 
the tempest of persecution broke over Africa. The 
angry and insulting epithets with which the Catholic 
historians have loaded Lucilla are perhaps the best 
testimony to her ability and influence. She was very 
rich and a born intriguante {pecuniosisshna et facti- 
osissima), and as she had what she considered to be 
a personal insult to avenge, she was as willing as she 
was competent to cause trouble and mischief. 

Shortly before the overthrow of Maxentius, one of 
Mensurius's deacons issued a defamatory libel against 
the Emperor and then took sanctuary at Carthage. 
The Bishop refused to surrender him and was per- 

* Os nescio cujus hominis mortui, et si martyris, sed necduni vindi- 
cati. 



i64 Constantine 

emptorily summoned to Rome. Evidently expect- 
ing that the Emperor would condemn him and order 
the confiscation of the holy vessels of his church, 
Mensurius secretly handed them over to the custody 
of certain elders in whose honesty he thought he 
could place implicit reliance. But he took the pre- 
caution — a wise one, as it subsequently proved — to 
make an inventory, which he gave to an old woman, 
with instructions that if he did not return she was to 
hand it to his lawfully appointed successor. Men- 
surius then went to Rome, succeeded in convincing 
Maxentius of his innocence, but died on the way 
home, in 31 1 A.D. As soon as the news of his death 
reached Carthage, the round of intrigue began. Ac- 
cording to Optatus, two deacons named Botrus and 
Celestius, each hoping to secure his own elevation, 
hurried on the election, in which the Numidian 
bishops were not invited to take part. The passage 
is obscure, for Optatus goes on to say that the choice 
fell upon Caecilianus, who was elected " by the suf- 
frages of the whole people," and was consecrated in 
due form by Felix, Bishop of Aptunga. When 
Caecilianus called upon the elders to restore the 
Church ornaments, they quitted the Church — the 
suggestion of the Catholic historian is that they had 
hoped to steal them — and attached themselves to 
the faction of Lucilla, together with Botrus and 
Celestius, whom St. Augustine roundly denounces 
as "impious and sacrilegious thieves." The schism 
was now complete. It had its origin, says Optatus,* 

* Schisma igitur illo tempore confusce 7nulieris iractmdia peperit, 
ambitus nutrivit, avaritia roboravit. 



Constantine and the Donatists 165 

in the fury of a headstrong woman ; it was nurtured 
by intrigue and drew its strength from jealous greed. 
Caecilianus' position was speedily challenged. The 
malcontents appealed to the Numidian bishops, 
urging them to declare in synod whether the elec- 
tion was vahd. Accordingly, the Numidian Primate, 
Secundus of Tigisis, came with seventy other bishops 
to the capital, where they were received with open 
arms by the opposition party. Caecilianus seated 
himself on his throne in the cathedral and waited for 
the bishops to appear. When they did not come he 
sent a message saying, " If any one has any accusa- 
tion to bring against me, let him come to make good 
the charge." But the Numidian bishops preferred 
to meet elsewhere within closed doors and finally 
declared the election of Caecilianus invalid on the 
ground that he had been consecrated by a traditor. 
To this Caecilianus rephed that, if they thought Fe- 
lix of Aptunga had been a traditor, they had better 
consecrate him themselves, as though he were still a 
simple deacon — a sarcasm which roused the violent 
Purpurius to exclaim: "Let him come here to re- 
ceive the laying on of hands, and we will strike off 
his head by way of penance." They then elected 
Majorinus, who had been one of Caecilianus' readers 
and was now a member of Lucilla's household. 
There were thus two rival bishops of Carthage. 
Those who supported Caecilianus called themselves 
the Catholic party ; their rivals, until the death of 
Majorinus in 315, were known as the party of Major- 
inus, though their moving spirit seems to have been, 
first, Donatus, the Bishop of Casae Nigrs, and, after- 



1 66 Constantine 

wards, Donatus, surnamed Magnus, who gave his 
name to the schism. 

Though Africa was thus split into two camps, there 
is no evidence that Majorinus was recognised by any 
of the churches of Europe, Egypt, or Asia. These 
all looked to Caecilianus as the rightful bishop, and 
so, when Constantine, fresh from his victory over 
Maxentius, wrote to the African churches in 312 to 
announce his intention of making a handsome pre- 
sent of money to their clergy, it was to Caecilianus 
that the letter was addressed, and the schismatics 
were rebuked in the sharpest terms. The letter ran 
as follows : 

"Constantine Augustus to Caecilianus, Bishop of 
Carthage. 

" Inasmuch as it has pleased us to contribute something 
towards the necessary expenses of certain ministers of 
the lawful and most holy Catholic religion throughout 
all the provinces of Africa, Numidia, and both Maure- 
tanias, I have sent letters to Ursus, the most noble gov- 
ernor of Africa, and have instructed him to see that 
three thousand purses are paid over to your Reverence. 
When, therefore, you have received the above mentioned 
sum, you will take care that the money is divided among 
the clergy already spoken of according to the instruc- 
tions sent to you by Hosius. 

" If you consider this amount insufficient for the pur- 
pose of testifying my regard for all of you in Africa, you 
are to ask without delay Heraclidas, the procurator of 
the imperial domains, for whatever you may think neces- 
sary. For I have personally instructed him that what- 



Constantine and the Donatists 167 

ever sum your Reverence asks for is to be paid without 
hesitation. 

" And since I have heard that certain persons of ill- 
balanced mind {quosdam non satis compositce mentis) 
are acting in such a manner as to corrupt the people of 
the most holy and Catholic Church with wicked and 
adulterous falsehoods {improba et adulterina falsitate), 
I would have you know that I have given verbal instruc- 
tions to Anulinus, the proconsul, and to Patricius, the 
vicar of the praefects, to include among their other duties 
a sharp lookout in this matter, and, if this movement con- 
tinues, not to neglect or ignore it, 

"Consequently, if you find persons of this character 
persevering in their mad folly {in hac amentia perse- 
verare) you will at once approach the above mentioned 
judges and lay the matter before them, that they may 
punish the culprits {in eos animadvertant) in accordance 
with my personal instructions. 

" May the divinity of the Supreme God {Divinitas 
sunimi Dei) preserve you for many years." 

In conjunction v^ith this must be taken the letter 
addressed by Constantine to Anulinus, the proconsul 
of Africa : 

" Greetings to our best beloved Anulinus ! Inasmuch 
as it is abundantly proven that the neglect of the religion 
which preserves the greatest reverence for divine majesty 
has reduced the State to the direst peril, while its care- 
ful and due observance has brought the most splendid 
prosperity to the Roman name and unspeakable felicity 
to all things mortal, thanks to divine goodness, we have 
resolved, best beloved Anulinus, that those, who with 
due righteousness of life and continual observance of 



i68 Constantine 

the law, perform their ministry in this divine religion 
shall reap the reward of their labours. 

"Wherefore, it is our wish that all who, in the province 
under your care and in the Catholic Church over which 
Csecilianus presides, minister to this most holy religion — 
those, viz., whom people are wont to call the clergy — shall 
be absolved * from all public duties of any kind, lest, 
by some slip or grave mischance, they may be distracted 
from the duties they owe to the Supreme Divinity, and 
that they may do the better service to their own ritual 
without any disturbing influences. 

" Inasmuch as these people display the deepest rever- 
ence for the Divine Will, it seems to me that they ought 
to receive the greatest reward the State can bestow." 

These are two remarkable letters. They clearly 
prove that the schism in the African Church was 
making a stir outside Africa, and that the Emperor 
had been instructed in the main points at issue. The 
new convert had cast his all-powerful influence upon 
the Catholic side — an Emperor would naturally be 
biassed against schism — and he was prepared to 
utilise the civil power in order to compel the return of 
the schismatics to obedience. So little observant 
was he of his own edict of toleration that he was 
prepared to use force to secure uniformity within 
the Church! Constantine, indeed, reveals himself 
not merely as a Christian, but as a Catholic Christ- 
ian ; his bounty is reserved for the Catholic clergy, 
and the immunity from public duties involving 
heavy expense is reserved similarly for them alone. 

* Ab omnibus o77inino publicis functionibus immunes vohitnus cori' 
servari. 



Constantine and the Donatists 169 

Nevertheless, the party of Majorinus petitioned the 
Emperor to appoint a commission of Gallican bish- 
ops to enquire into and report upon their quarrel 
with the Bishop of Carthage. 

" We appeal to you, Constantine, best of Emperors, 
since you come of a just stock, for your father was alone 
among his colleagues in not putting the persecution into 
force, and Gaul was thus spared that frightful crime. 
Strife has arisen between us and other African bishops, 
and we pray that your piety may lead you to grant us 
judges from Gaul." 

(Signed by Lucianus, Dignus, Nasutius, Capito, 
Fidentius, and other bishops of the party of 
Majorinus.) 

This petition was forwarded by Anulinus, the pro- 
consul, whose covering letter, dated April, 313, 
describes the opponents of Caecilianus as being 
resolute in refusing obedience. The Emperor, who 
was in Gaul when the petition reached him, granted 
the desired commission and instructed the bishops 
of Cologne, Autun, and Aries to repair to Rome. 
Caecihanus was instructed to attend with the bishops 
belonging to his party; ten of the rival bishops 
attached to Majorinus were to appear in the character 
of accusers, and for judges there were to be Miltiades, 
Bishop of Rome, the three Gallican bishops, and fif- 
teen other Italian bishops selected by Miltiades from 
all parts of the peninsula. They met in October in 
the palace of the Empress Fausta, on the Lateran. 
Constantine had already written a letter to Mil- 
tiades, in which he deplored the existence of such 



170 Constantine 

serious schism in the populous African provinces, 
which, he said, had spontaneously surrendered to 
him, under the influence of divine Providence, as a 
reward for his devotion to religion. He, therefore, 
looked to the bishops to find a reasonable solution. 

At the first sitting the credentials of the accusers 
of Csecilianus were examined, and some were dis- 
qualified on the score of bad character. Then, when 
the witnesses were called, those who had been brought 
to Rome by Majorinus and Donatus avowed that 
they had nothing to say against Caecilianus. The 
case of the petitioners practically collapsed, for the 
judges refused to listen to unsubstantiated gossip 
and scandal, and Donatus in the end declined to 
attend the enquiry, fearing lest he should be con- 
demned on his own admissions. Later on, a second 
list of charges was handed in, but was not supported 
by a single witness, and then finally the commission 
passed on to enquire into the proceedings of the 
Council of the seventy bishops who had declared the 
election of Caecilianus invalid. They had no difficulty 
in reaching a general decision. 

The accusations against Caecilianus had clearly 
broken down and the verdict of Miltiades began in 
the following terms: "Inasmuch as it is shewn that 
Csecilianus is not accused by those who came with 
Donatus, as they had promised to do, and Donatus 
has in no particular established his charges against 
him, I find that Caecilianus should be maintained in 
the communion of his church with all his privileges 
intact." St. Augustine warmly eulogises the admir- 
able moderation displayed by Miltiades, who, in the 



Constantine and the Donatists 171 

hope of restoring unity, offered to send letters of 
communion to all who had been consecrated by 
Majorinus, proposing that where there were two rival 
bishops, the senior in time of consecration should be 
confirmed in the appointment, while another see 
should Ue found for the other. But the Donatists 
would listen to no compromise. They appealed again 
to the Emperor, who, with a very pardonable out- 
burst of wrath, denounced the rabid and implacable 
hatreds of these turbulent Africans. 

Knowing that the quarrel would be resumed in 
full blast if Caecilianus and Donatus returned to 
Africa, Constantine detained them both in Italy. 
Two Italian bishops, Eunomius and Olympius, were 
meanwhile sent to Carthage to act as peacemakers 
and explain to the African congregations which was 
the true Catholic Church. It was none other, they 
said, than the Church which was diffused throughout 
the whole world, and they insisted that the judg- 
ment of the nineteen bishops was one from which 
there could be no appeal. The Donatists, however, 
retorted that if the verdict of nineteen bishops was 
sacred, a verdict of seventy must be even more so. 
They resisted the overtures of their visitors, and 
thus, when Donatus and Caecilianus in turn reap- 
peared on the scene, the fires of partisanship did not 
lack for fuel. It was no longer possible for the 
Donatists to press for a rehearing on the ground of 
the personal character of Caecilianus. They had had 
their chance in Rome to impugn the Primate's 
character, and had failed. They now shifted their 
ground and based their claim upon the fact that 



172 Constantine 

Felix of Aptunga, who had consecrated Caecilianus, 
was a traditor, and the consecration was, therefore, 
invaHd. 

But was Felix a traditor ? This was a plain, 
straightforward question, involving no disputed 
point of doctrine. Constantine, therefore, wrote to 
^lianus, Anulinus's successor as proconsul of Africa, 
instructing him to hold a public enquiry into the life 
and character of Felix of Aptunga. Part of the 
official report has come down to us. Among the 
witnesses were those who had been the chief 
magistrates of Aptunga at the time of the persecu- 
tion. These must all have been acutely conscious of 
the curiously anomalous position in which they 
stood. If they found that Felix had delivered up 
the Holy Books and utensils of the church, their 
verdict would acquit him of having broken the law 
of Diocletian, but would convict him of being a 
traditor, and would, therefore, be most unwelcome 
to the reigning sovereign. If they decided that 
Felix was not a traditor, they would convict him of 
having broken the law of Diocletian and convict 
themselves of having been lax administrators. The 
favour of a living Prince, however, outweighed con- 
sideration for the edicts of the dead, and the finding 
of the court was that " no volumes of Holy Scripture 
had been discovered at Aptunga, or had been defiled, 
or burnt." It went on to say that Felix was not 
present in the city at the time and that he had not 
temporised with his conscience {neque conscientiam 
accommodaverii). He had been, in short, a godly 
bishop {j-eligiosuin episcopmn). The character of 




I- . 

— I- 



Constantine and the Donatists 173 

Felix was, therefore, entirely rehabilitated and the 
validity of the consecration of Csecilianus was 
unimpaired. 

Then follows the Council of Aries in 314. With a 
forbearance rarely displayed by a Roman emperor to 
inveterate and unreasoning opposition, Constantine 
yielded to the clamour of the Donatists for a new coun- 
cil on a broader and more authoritative scale than the 
commission of Italian and Gallic bishops. But his dis- 
appointment and disgust are plainly to be seen in 
his letter to the proconsul of Africa. Constantine 
began by saying that he had fully expected that the 
decision of a commission of bishops " of the very 
highest probity and competence " would have com- 
manded universal respect. He found, however, that 
the enemies of Csecilianus were as dogged and 
obstinate as ever, for they declared that the bishops 
had simply shut themselves up in a room and judged 
the case according to their personal predilections. 
They clamoured for another council : he would grant 
them one which was to meet at Aries. ^Elianus, there- 
fore, was to see that the public posting service 
throughout Africa and Mauretania was placed at the 
disposal of Caecilianus and his party and of Donatus 
and his party, that they might travel with despatch 
and cross into Spain by the quickest passage. Then 
the letter continued : 

" You will provide each separate Bishop with imperial 
letters entitling him to necessaries en route {tractorias 
Utteras) that he may arrive at Aries by the first of 
August, and you will also give all the bishops to under- 
stand that, before they leave their dioceses, they must 



174 Constantine 

make arrangements whereby, during their absence, 
reasonable discipline may be preserved and no chance 
revolt against authority or private altercations arise, for 
these bring the Church into great disgrace. 

" On the other matters at issue, I wish the enquiry to 
be full and complete, and an end to be reached,* as I 
hope it may be, when all those who are known to be at 
variance meet together in person. The quarrel may 
thus come to its natural and timely conclusion, 

" For as I am well assured that you are a worshipper 
of the supreme God, I confess to your Excellency that I 
consider it by no means lawful for me to ignore disputes 
and quarrels of such a nature as may excite the supreme 
Divinity to wrath, not only against the human race but 
against myself personally, into whose charge the Divinity 
by its Divine will has committed the governance of all 
that is on earth. In its just indignation, it might decree 
some ill against me. 

" And then only can I feel really and absolutely 
secure, and hope for an unfailing supply of all the 
richest blessings that flow from the instant goodness of 
Almighty God, when I shall see all mankind reverencing 
most Holy God in brotherly singleness of worship and in 
the lawful rites of our Catholic religion. "f 

Not only did Constantine write in this evidently 
sincere strain to the proconsul of Africa ; he also 
sent personal letters to the bishops whose pres- 
ence he desired. Eusebius has preserved the 
text of one of these, which was addressed to 



* De ccEtero plena cognitione suscepta finis adhibeatur, 

\ Tunc enim rev era ef plenissime securtis potero esse, cum universos 

sensero debito ctiltu catholiciB religionis sanctissunum Deum concordl 

observanticB fraternitate venerari. 



Constantine and the Donatists 175 

Chrestus, Bishop of Syracuse, in which the Emperor 
instructs him not to fail to reach Aries by August 
1st, and bids him secure a public vehicle from 
Latronianus, the Governor of Sicily, and bring with 
him two presbyters of the second rank and three 
personal servants. In obedience to Constantine's 
wishes the bishops assembled at Aries by the 
appointed day. It is not known how many were 
present. On the fullest list of those who signed the 
canons there agreed to are found the names of 
thirty-three bishops, thirteen presbyters, twenty-three 
deacons, two readers, seven exorcists, and four 
representatives of the Bishop of Rome. But from 
the extreme importance attached to the council in 
later times it is certain that many more attended, 
and the numbers have been variously estimated at 
from two to six hundred. Not a single Eastern 
bishop was present. It was a council of the West, 
representing the various provinces of Africa and 
Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia. 
From Britain came Eborius of York, Restitutus of 
London, and Adelfius, the Bishop of a diocese which 
has been variously interpreted as that of Colchesterj 
Lincoln, and Caerleon on Usk, with a presbyter 
named Sacerdos and a deacon called Arminius. The 
Bishop of Rome, Sylvester, sent two presbyters and 
two deacons. 

The Council investigated with great minuteness 
the points raised by the Donatists, but it is clear 
from the report sent to Sylvester that the Donatists 
were no better supplied with evidence than they 
had been at Rome. They simply repeated the old, 



i;^ Constantine 

unsubstantiated charge against Caecilianus that, as 
deacon, he had forcibly prevented the members of 
the Church of Carthage from succouring their brethren 
in prison during the persecution of Diocletian, and 
the disproved accusation against the bishop who con- 
secrated him that he had been a traditor. In a 
word, they had absolutely no case and the Council 
of Aries endorsed the verdict of the Council of 
Rome. The synodal letter to Sylvester began as 
follows : 

" We, assembled in the city of Aries at the bidding of 
our most pious Emperor, in the common bonds of charity 
and unity, and knitted together by the ties of the mother 
Catholic Church, salute you, most holy Pope, with all due 
reverence. We have endured to listen to the accusations 
of desperate men, who have wrought grave injury to our 
law and tradition, men whom the present authority of 
our God and the rule of truth have so utterly disowned 
that there was no reason in their speeches, no bounds to 
the charges they brought, and no evidence or proof. 
And so, in the judgment of God and the Mother Church, 
which has known and attests them, they stand either 
condemned or rejected. Would that you, dearest brother, 
had found it possible to take part in such a gathering. 
We verily believe that in that case a more severe sentence 
would have been passed upon them, while if your judg- 
ment had coincided with ours, the joy of our assembly 
would have been intensified. But since you found it 
impossible to leave the chosen place where the Apostles 
make their daily home, and where their blood testifies 
ceaselessly to the glory of God, we thought, dearest bro- 
ther, that we ought not simply to take in hand the subject 
for the discussion of which we had been called together, 



Constantine and the Donatists 177 

but also to consider other matters on our own account, 
and, as we have come from diverse provinces, diverse are 
the topics on which it seemed good to us to take 
counsel." 

The letter then enumerates the canons to which 
the signatories had agreed and transmits them with 
the remark that as the Bishop of Rome's dioceses 
were wider than those of any other bishop, he was 
the most suitable person to press the acceptance of 
these canons upon the Church. 

It does not fall within the province of this book to 
discuss these twenty-two canons ; it will sufifice to 
indicate the more important in the briefest outline. 
The first suggested that Easter should be celebrated 
on the same day throughout the whole world ; 
the second insisted on the clergy residing in the 
places to which they were ordained ; the third 
threatened with excommunication deserters from the 
army in times of peace {qui arma projiciunt in pace). 
Of special importance in connection with the ques- 
tions raised by the Donatists were the canons which 
prohibited the rebaptism of heretics if they had 
been baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity ; 
which recognised the validity of baptism conferred 
by heretics, if conferred in the proper form ; which 
ordered that a new bishop should be consecrated by 
seven, or at least three, bishops and never by a single 
one ; which removed from the ministry all those 
who were clearly proved to have been traditores or to 
have denounced their brother clergy, though, if these 
had ordained any others to the ministry, the validity 
of the ordination was not to be challenged. Worthy 



178 Constantine 

also of note is the canon removing from the com- 
munion of the faithful all those engaged in any 
calling connected with the arena or the stage, such 
as charioteers, jockeys, actors, pantomimists, and the 
like, as long as they continue in professions which, in 
the eyes of the Church, tend to the subversion of 
pubhc morals; the canon which excommunicated 
those of the clergy who practised usury, and the 
canon exhorting those whose wives had been unfaith- 
ful not to marry again, as they were legally entitled 
to do, during the lifetime of their guilty partners. 

If the Council of Aries was exceptionally fruitful 
in respect of new rules passed for the improvement 
of ecclesiastical discipline, it proved an entire failure 
in its primary object, that of putting an end to the 
Donatist schism. The African malcontents still re- 
fused to acknowledge Caecilianus and had the ef- 
frontery to appeal to Constantine for yet another 
investigation. As the bishops of the West were 
obstinately prejudiced against them, they desired 
the Emperor to be gracious enough to take charge 
of the enquiry himself. Constantine did not con- 
ceal his anger in the important letter which he ad- 
dressed to the bishops at Aries, thanking them for 
their labours and giving them leave to return to 
their homes. He wrote : 

" Certainly I cannot describe or enumerate the blessings 
which God in His heavenly bounty has bestowed upon 
me. His servant. I rejoice exceedingly, therefore, that 
after this most just enquiry you have recalled to better 
hope and future those whom the malignity of the Devil 



Constantine and the Donatists 179 

seemed to have seduced away by his miserable persua- 
sion from the clearest light of the Catholic law. O truly 
conquering Providence of Christ, our Saviour, solicitous 
even for these who have deserted and turned their 
weapons against the truth, and joined themselves to the 
heathen. Yet even now, if they will truly believe and 
obey His most holy law, they will be able to see what 
forethought has been taken in their behalf by the will of 
God. 

"And I hoped, most holy brethren, to find such a dis- 
position even in the stubbornest breasts. For not with- 
out just cause will the clemency of Christ depart from 
those, in whom it shines with a light so clear that we 
may perceive they are regarded with loathing by the 
Divine Providence. Such men must be bereft of reason, 
since with incredible arrogance they persuade them- 
selves of the truth of things, of which it is neither meet 
to speak nor hear others speak, abandoning the righteous 
decisions which have been laid down. So persistent and 
ineradicable is their malignity. How often already have 
they shamelessly approached me, only to be crushed 
with the fitting response ! Now they clamour for a 
judgment from me, who myself await the judgment of 
Christ. For I say that, as far as the truth is concerned, 
a judgment delivered by priests ought to be considered 
as valid as though Christ Himself were present and de- 
livering judgment.* For priests can form no thought or 
judgment, unless what they are taught to utter by the ad- 
monitory voice of Christ. 

" What, then, can these malignant creatures be think- 
ing of, creatures of the Devil, as I have truly said ? 

'^Meum judicium postulant qui judicium Christi expecto. Dico 
enim, ut se Veritas habet, sacerdotum judicium ita debet habeH ac 
si ipse Dominus residens judicet. 



i8o Constantine 

They seek the things of this world, abandoning the 
things of Heaven. What sheer, rabid madness possesses 
them, that they have entered an appeal, as is wont to be 
done in mundane lawsuits? . . . What do these 
detractors of the law think of Christ their Saviour, if 
they refuse to acknowledge the judgment of Heaven 
and demand judgment from me ? They are proven 
traitors ; they have themselves convicted themselves of 
their crimes, without need of closer enquiry into them. 
. . . Do you, however, dearest brothers, return to 
your own homes, and be ye mindful of me that our 
Saviour may ever have mercy upon me." 

It is not a little difficult to understand why an 
Emperor who wrote such a letter as the above should 
have again acceded to the Donatist demand for 
a rehearing. Possibly the Donatists had powerful 
friends at court of whom we know nothing, some 
member, it may be, of the Imperial Family, or per- 
haps the case against them was not so one-sided as 
the Catholic authorities agree in representing. At 
any rate, Constantine summoned Caecilianus to ap- 
pear before him in Rome. Here is the letter which 
he wrote to the Donatist bishops to apprise them of 
his determination : 

" A few days ago I had decided to accede to your re- 
quest and permit you to return to Africa, that the case 
which you think you have established against Caecilianus 
might be fully investigated and brought to a proper con- 
clusion. But, after long and careful consideration, I 
have deemed the following arrangement best. Know- 
ing, as 1 do, that certain of you are of a decidedly tur- 
bulent nature and obstinately reject a right verdict and 



Constantine and the Donatists i8i 

the reasoning of absolute truth, it might conceivably 
happen, if the case were heard in Africa, that the con- 
clusion reached would not be a fitting one, or in accord- 
ance with the dictates of truth. In that event, owing to 
your exceeding obstinacy, something might occur which 
would greatly displease the Heavenly Divinity and do 
serious injury to my reputation, which I desire ever to 
maintain unimpaired. I have decided therefore, as I 
have said, that it is better for Cfficilianus to come here 
and I think he will speedily arrive. 

" But I pledge you my word that if, in his presence, 
you shall succeed in proving a single one of the crimes 
and misdeeds which you lay to his charge, it shall have 
as much weight with me as if you had proved every ac- 
cusation you bring forward. May God Almighty keep 
you safe for ever." 

At the same time Constantine wrote to Probia- 
nus, the successor of ^lianus in the governorship of 
Africa, instructing him to send under guard to Italy- 
certain witnesses who had been imprisoned for forging 
documents purporting to shew that Felix of Aptunga 
was a traditor. Caecilianus failed to appear at the 
appointed time, for some reason which is unknown 
to St. Augustine, who gives a brief account of the 
sequence of events.* The Donatists demanded that 
judgment should be given against the absent bishop 
by default, but Constantine refused and ordered them 
to follow him to Milan, where affairs of state necessi- 
tated his presence. If Augustine is to be trusted, 
the Emperor secured the attendance of the Do- 
natists by clapping them under guard {ab officialibus 

* Epist. , 43. 



1 82 Constantine 

custoditos). This time Csecilianus did not fail his pa- 
tron. Constantine, who was strongly averse from tak- 
ing upon himself to revise, as it were, the judgments 
passed by so many bishops in council, deprecated 
their possible resentment by assuring them that his 
sole desire was to close the mouths of the Donatists. 
After hearing the case all over again, Constantine 
pronounced judgment on Nov. i6, 316. St. Au- 
gustine says that the Emperor's letters prove his 
diligence, caution, and forethought. The praise may 
be deserved, but it is evident that he had made up 
his mind beforehand. He re-affirmed the absolute 
innocence of Caecilianus and the shamelessness of his 
accusers. In an interesting fragment of a letter writ- 
ten by the Emperor to Eumalius, one of his vicars, 
occurs this sentence : " I saw in Caecilianus a man of 
spotless innocence, one who observed the proper du- 
ties of religion and served it as he ought, nor did it 
appear that guilt could be found in him, as had been 
charged against him in his absence by the mahce of 
his enemies." The publication of the Emperor's 
verdict was followed by an edict prescribing penal- 
ties against the schismatics. St. Augustine speaks of 
a " most severe law against the party of Donatus,"* 
and, from other scattered references, we learn that 
their churches were confiscated and that they were 
fined for non-obedience. The author of the Edict 
of Milan, who had promised absolute freedom of 
conscience to all, was so soon obliged to invoke the 
arm of the temporal authority for the correction of 
religious disunion ! 

* Ej>ist., 105. 



Constantine and the Donatists 183 

But the Donatists, whose only raison d'etre was 
their passionate insistence upon the obligation of the 
Christian to make no compromise with conscience, 
however sharp the edge of the persecutor's sword, 
were obviously not the kind of people to be over- 
awed by so mild a punishment as confiscation of 
property. The Emperor's edicts were fruitless, 
and in 320, only four years later, we find Constan- 
tine trying a change of policy and recommending 
the African bishops to see once more what toleration 
would do. Active repression only made martyrs, and 
martyrdom was the goal of the fanatical Donatist's 
ambition. Hence the terms in which the Emperor 
addresses the Catholic Church of Africa. After 
enumerating the repeated efforts he has made in 
order to restore unity, and dwelling upon the delib- 
erate and abandoned wickedness of those who have 
rendered his intervention nugatory, he continues: 

" We must hope, therefore, that Almighty God may 
shew pity and gentleness to his people, as this schism is 
the work of a few. For it is to God that we should look 
for a remedy, since all good vows and deeds are requited. 
But until the healing comes from above, it behoves us to 
moderate our councils, to practise patience, and to bear 
with the virtue of calmness any assault or attack which 
the depravity of these people prompts them to deliver. 

" Let there be no paying back injury with injury : for it 
is only the fool who takes into his usurping hands the 
vengeance which he ought to reserve for God.* Our 



* Nihil ex reciproco reponattir injurice : Vindictam enini, quani 
Deo sej-vare debemus, insipientis est manibus usurpare. 



1 84 Constantine 

faith should be strong enough to feel full confidence 
that, whatever we have to endure from the fury of men 
like these, will avail with God with all the grace of mar- 
tyrdom. For what is it in this world to conquer in the 
name of God, unless it be to bear with fortitude the dis- 
ordered attack of men who trouble the peaceful followers 
of the law! 

" If you observe my will, you will speedily find that, 
thanks to the supreme power, the designs of the pre- 
sumptuous standard-bearers of this wretched faction will 
languish, and all men will recognise that they ought not 
to listen to the persuasion of a few and perish everlast- 
ingly, when, by the grace of penitence, they may correct 
their errors and be restored to eternal life." 

Patience, leniency, and toleration, however, were 
as futile as force in dealing with the Donatists, who 
bluntly told the Emperor that his protege, Csecili- 
anus, was a "worthless rascal" {antistiti ejus nebu- 
loni), and refused to obey his injunctions. Donatus, 
surnamed the Great in order to distinguish him from 
the other Donatus, who had been Bishop of Casee 
Nigrae, had by this time succeeded to the leadership 
of the schism on the death of Majorinus, and the ex- 
traordinary ascendency which he obtained over his 
followers, in spite of the powerful Imperial influence 
which was always at the support of Csecilianus, war- 
rants the belief that he was a man of marked ability. 
Learned, eloquent, and irreproachable in private life, 
he is said to have ruled his party with an imperious 
hand, and to have treated his bishops like lackeys. 
Yet his authority was so unbounded and unques- 
tioned that his followers swore by his name and 



Constantine and the Donatists 185 

grey hairs, and, at his death, ascribed to him the 
honours paid only to martyrs. 

Under his leadership the Donatists rapidly in- 
creased in numbers. They were schismatics rather 
than heretics. They had no great distinctive tenet ; 
what they seem to have insisted upon chiefly was 
absolute purity within the Church and freedom from 
worldly taint. That was their ideal, as it has been 
the ideal of many other wild sectaries since their 
day. They claimed special revelations of the Divine 
Will ; they insisted upon rebaptising their converts, 
compelling even holy virgins to take fresh vows on 
joining their communion, which they boasted was 
that of the one true Church. Such a sect naturally 
attracted to itself all the fanatical extremists of 
Africa and all those who had any grievance against 
the Cathohc authorities. It became the refuge of 
the revolutionary, the bankrupt, and the criminal, 
and thus, inside the Donatist movement proper, 
there grew up a kind of anarchist movement against 
property, which had little or no connection with re- 
ligious principles. 

Constantine, during the remainder of his reign, 
practically ignored the African Church. He had 
done what he could and he wiped his hands of it. 
There soon arose an extravagant sect which took 
the name of Circumcelliones, from their practice of 
begging food from cell to cell, or cottage to cottage. 
They renounced the ordinary routine of daily life. 
Forming themselves into bands, and styling them- 
selves the Champions of the Lord {ayooviffruwi), 
they roamed through the countryside, which they 



1 86 Constantine 

kept in a state of abject terror. St. Augustine, in a 
well-known passage, declares that when their shout 
of " Praise be to God ! " was heard, it was more 
dreaded than the roar of a lion. They were armed 
with wooden clubs, which they named " Israels," 
and these they did not scruple to use upon the 
Catholics, whose churches they entered and plun- 
dered, committing the most violent excesses, though 
they were pledged to celibacy. Gibbon justly com- 
pares them to the Camisards of Languedoc at the 
commencement of the i8th century, and others have 
likened them to the Syrian Assassins at the time of 
the Crusades and the Jewish Sicarii of Palestine dur- 
ing the first century of the Christian era. They 
formed, it seems, a sort of Christian Jacquerie, pos- 
sessed in their wilder moments with a frantic passion 
for martyrdom and imploring those whom they met 
to kill them. The best of them were fit only for a 
madhouse ; the worst were fit only for a gaol. Prob- 
ably they had little connection with the respectable 
Donatists in the cities, whose organisation was pre- 
cisely the same as that of the Catholics, and their 
operations were mainly restricted to the thinly popu- 
lated districts on the borders of the desert. 

On one occasion, however, Constantine was obliged 
to interfere. The Donatists in Cirta, — the capital of 
Numidia, — which had been renamed Constantina in 
honour of the Emperor, had forcibly seized the 
church of the Catholics, that had been built at Con- 
stantine's command. The Catholics, therefore, ap- 
pealed to the Emperor, and knowing that he was 
pledged to a policy of non-interference, they did not 



Constantine and the Donatists 187 

ask for punishment against the Donatists, or even 
for the restoration of the church in question, but 
simply that a new site might be given them out of 
public moneys. The Emperor granted their request, 
ordering that the building as well as the site should be 
paid for by the State, and granting immunity from 
all public offices to the Catholic clergy of the town. 
In his letter Constantine does not mince his language 
with respect to the Donatists. 

" They are adherents," he says, " of the Devil, who is 
their father ; they are insane, traitors, irreligious, pro- 
fane, ranged against God and enemies of the Holy 
Church. Would to Heaven ! " he concludes, " that 
these heretics or schismatics might have regard even 
now for their own salvation, and, brushing aside the 
darkness, turn their eyes to see the true light, leaving 
the Devil, and flying for refuge, late though it be, to the 
one and true God, who is the j udge of all ! But since they 
are set upon remaining in their wickedness and wish to 
die in their iniquities, our warning and our previous 
long continued exhortations must suffice. For if they 
had been willing to obey our commandments, they 
would now be free from all evil." 

Evidently the Emperor was thoroughly weary of 
the whole controversy, and disgusted at such unrea- 
soning contumacy. The same feelings find power- 
ful expression in the letters and manifestoes of St. 
Augustine, a century later, when the great Bishop 
of Hippo constituted himself the champion of the 
Catholic Church and played the foremost part in 
the stormy debates which preceded the final disap- 



1 88 Constantlne 

pearance of the Donatist schism, after the Council of 
Carthage in 410. Then the momentous decision 
was reached that all bishops who, after three appeals 
to them to return to the Church, still refused sub- 
mission, should be brought back to the Catholic fold 
by force. The point in dispute was still just what 
it had been in the days of Constantine, whether a 
Christian Church could be considered worthy of the 
name if it had admitted faithless and unworthy 
members, or if the ministers had been ordained by 
bishops who had temporised with their consciences 
and fallen short of the loftiest ideal of duty. That 
was the great underlying principle at stake in the 
Donatist controversy, though, as in all such contro- 
versies, the personal element was paramount when 
the schism began, and was still the cause of the bit- 
terness and fury with which the quarrel was con- 
ducted long after the intrigues of Lucilla and the 
personal animosities between Caecilianusand the Nu. 
midian bishops had ceased to be of interest or mo- 
ment to the living Church. And it is interesting to 
note that while it was the Donatists themselves who 
had made the first appeal unto Caesar by asking 
Constantine to judge between them and Csecilianus, 
in St. Augustine's day the Donatists hotly denied 
the capacity of the State to take cognisance of spiritual 
things. What, they asked, has an Emperor to do 
with the Church ? Quid est Imperatori cum Ecclesia ? 




STATUE OF CONSTANTINE FROM THE PORCH OF SAN GIOVANNI IN 
LATERAN, AT ROME. 



CHAPTER X 

THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY 

IF Constantine beheld with impatience the irrecon- 
cilable fury of the Donatists, who refused either 
to respect his wishes for Christian unity or to obey 
the bishops of the Western Church ; if he angrily 
washed his hands of their stubborn factiousness and 
committed them in despair to the judgment of God, 
we may imagine with what bitterness of soul he be- 
held the gathering of the storm of violent contro- 
versy which is associated with the two great names 
of Arius and Athanasius. This was a controversy, 
and Arianism was a heresy, which, unlike the Don- 
atist schism, were confined to no single province of the 
Empire, but spread like a flood over the Eastern 
Church, raising issues of tremendous importance, 
vital to the very existence of Christianity. It started 
in Alexandria. No birthplace could have been more 
appropriate to a system of theology which was pro- 
fessedly based upon pure reason than the great uni- 
versity city where East and West met, the home of 
Neo-Platonism, the inheritor of the Hellenic tradi- 
tion, and the chief exponent of Hellenism, as under- 
stood and professed by Greeks who for centuries 

189 



190 Constantlne 

had been subject to and profoundly modified by 
Oriental ideas and thought. 

We must deal very briefly with its origin. Arius 
was born in the third quarter of the third century, 
according to some accounts in Libya, according to 
others in Alexandria. He was ordained deacon by the 
Patriarch Peter and presbyter by Achillas, who ap- 
pointed him to the church called Baucalis, the old- 
est and one of the most important of the city churches 
of Alexandria. Arius had been in schism in his earlier 
years. He had joined the party of Meletius, Bishop 
of Lycopolis, who was condemned by a synod of 
Egyptian bishops in 306 for insubordination and irre- 
gularity of conduct ; but he had made submission to 
Achillas, and during the latter's short tenure of the 
see, Arius became a power in Alexandria. We are 
told, indeed, that on the death of Achillas in 312 or 
313 Arius was a candidate for the vacant throne, and 
Theodoretus states that he was greatly mortified at 
being passed over in favour of Alexander. But there 
is no indication of personal animosity or quarrel be- 
tween the bishop and the parish priest until five or 
six years later. On the contrary, Alexander is said 
to have held Arius in high esteem, and the fame of 
the priest of Baucalis spread abroad through the city 
as that of an earnest worker, a strict and ascetic 
liver, and a powerful preacher who dealt boldly and 
frankly with the great principles of the faith. In 
person, Arius was of tall and striking presence, con. 
spicuous wherever he moved by his sleeveless tunic 
and narrow cloak, and gifted with great conversa- 
tional powers and charm of manner. He was also 



The Arian Controversy 191 

capable of infecting others with the enthusiasm 
which he felt himself. Arius has been described for 
us mainly by his enemies, who considered him a very 
anti-Christ, and attributed his remarkable success to 
the direct help of the Evil One. We may be sure 
that, like all the great religious leaders of the world, 
— among whom, heretic though he was, he deserves 
a place, — he was fanatically sincere and the doctrine 
which he preached was vital and fecund, even though 
the vitality and fecundity were those of error. 

It was not, apparently, until the year 319 that 
serious disturbance began in the Christian circles of 
Alexandria. There would first of all be whispers 
that Arius was preaching strange doctrine and hand- 
ling the great mysteries somewhat boldly and dog- 
matically. Many would doubt the wisdom of such 
outspokenness, quite apart from the question whether 
the doctrine taught was sound ; others would exhibit 
the ordinary distrust of innovation ; others would 
welcome this new kindling of theological interest 
from the mere pleasure of debate and controversy. 
We do not suppose that any one, not even Arius 
himself, foresaw — at any rate, at first — the extra- 
ordinary and lamentable consequences that were to 
follow from his teaching. The Patriarch Alexander 
has been blamed for not crushing the infant heresy 
at its birth, for not stopping the mouth of Arius be- 
fore the mischief was done. It is easy to be wise 
after the event. Doubtless Alexander did not ap- 
preciate the danger ; possibly also he thought that 
if he waited, the movement would subside of itself. 
He may very well have beheved that this popular 



192 Constantine 

preacher would lose his hold, that some one else 
would take his place as the fashioriable clergyman 
of the hour, that the extravagance of his doctrines 
would speedily be forgotten. Moreover, Arius was 
a zealous priest, doing good work in his own way, 
and long experience has shewn that it is wise for 
ecclesiastical superiors to give able men of marked 
power and originality considerable latitude in the 
expression of their views. 

As time went on, however, it became clear that 
Alexander must intervene. Arius was now the en- 
thusiastic advocate of theories which aimed at the 
very root of the Christian religion, inasmuch as they 
denied the essential Godhead of Christ. It was no 
longer a case of a daring thinker tentatively hinting 
at doctrines which were hardly in accord with estab- 
lished belief. Arius was devoting himself just to 
those points where he was at variance with his fel- 
lows, was insisting upon them in season and out of 
season, and was treating them as the very essence 
of Christianity. He had issued his challenge ; Alex- 
ander was compelled to take it up. The Patriarch 
sent for him privately. He wished either to con- 
vince him of his error or to induce him to be silent. 
But the interview was of no avail. Arius simply 
preached the more. Alexander then summoned a 
meeting of the clergy of Alexandria, and brought 
forward for discussion the accepted doctrine of the 
Holy Trinity which Arius had challenged. Arius and 
his sympathisers were present and the controversy 
was so prolonged that the meeting had to be ad- 
journed ; when it reassembled, the Patriarch endeav- 



The Arian Controversy 193 

oured to bring the debate to a close by restating the 

doctrine of the Holy Trinity in a form which he hoped 

would be unanimously approved. But this merely 

precipitated an open rupture. For Arius immediately 

rose and denounced Alexander for falling into the 

heresy of Sabellianism and reducing the Second e-x^ultm^ 

Person in the Trinity to a(mere)manifestation of the 

First. 

It is to be remembered that the doctrine of the 
Holy Trinity — difficult as it is even now, after cent- 
uries of discussion, to state in terms that are free 
from all equivocation — must have been far more dif- 
ficult to state then, before the Arian controversy 
had, so to speak, crystallised the exact meaning of 
the terms employed. It seems quite clear, more- 
over, from what subsequently took place, that Alex- 
ander was no match for Arius in dialectical subtlety 
and that Arius found it easy to twist his chief's un- 
skilful arguments and expressions into bearing an 
interpretation which Alexander had not intended. 
At any rate the inevitable result of the conference 
was that both sides parted in anger, and Arius con- 
tinued as before to preach the doctrine that the Son 
of God was a creature. For this was the leading 
tenet of Arianism and the basis of the whole heresy, 
that the Son of God was a creature, the first of all 
creatures, it is true, and created before the angels 
and archangels, ineffably superior to all other creat- 
ures, yet still a creature and, as such, ineffably inferior 
to the Creator, God the Father Himself. 

It does not fall within the scope of this book to 

discuss in detail the theological conceptions of Arius 
13 



194 Constantine 

and the mysteries of the Holy Trinity. But it is 
necessary to say a few words about this new doctrine 
which was to shake the world, and to shew how it 
came into being. Arius started from the Sonship of 
Christ, and argued thus : If Christ be really, and not 
simply metaphorically, the Son of God, and if the 
Divine Sonship is to be interpreted in the same way 
as the relationship between human father and son, 
then the Divine Father must have existed before the 
Divine Son. Therefore, there must have been a 
time when the Son did not exist. Therefore, the 
Son was a creature composed of an essence or being 
which had previously not been existent. And inas- 
much as the Father was in essence eternal and ever 
existent, the Son could not be of the same essence 
as the Father. Such was the Arian theory stated in 
the fewest possible words. " Its essential proposi- 
tions," as Canon Bright has said, * " were these two, 
that the Son had not existed from eternity and that 
he differed from other creatures in degree and not in 
kind." There can be nothing more misleading than 
to represent the Arian controversy as a futile logo- 
machy, a mere quarrel about words, about a single 
vowel even, as Gibbon has done in a famous passage. 
It was a vital controversy upon a vital dogma of the 
Christian Church. 

Two years seem to have passed before Bishop 
Alexander, finding that Arius was growing bolder in 
declared opposition, felt compelled to make an at- 
tempt to enforce discipline within his diocese. The 
insubordinate priest of Baucalis had rejected the 

* The Age of the Fathers, chap. v. \'Vi-^v-Ui 



The Arian Controversy 195 

personal appeal of his bishop and disregarded the 
wishes of a majority of the Alexandrian clergy, and 
we may reasonably suppose that his polemics would 
grow all the more bitter as he became aware of the 
rapidly deepening estrangement. He would sharpen 
the edge of his sarcasm upon the logical obtuseness 
of his nominal superiors, for his appeal was always to 
reason and to logic. Given my premises, he would 
say, where is the flaw in my deductions, and wherein 
do my syllogisms break down.? By the year 321 
Arius was the typical rebellious priest, profoundly 
self-confident, rejoicing in controversy, dealing hard 
blows all around him, and prepared to stoop to any 
artifice in order to gain adherents. To win over the 
mob, he was ready to degrade his principles to the 
mob's understanding. '> 

Alexander summoned a provincial synod of a 
hundred Egyptian and Libyan bishops to pronounce 
judgment upon the doctrines and the person of 
Arius. Attended by his principal supporters, Arius 
appeared before the synod and boldly stood to his 
guns. He maintained, that is to say, that God had 
not always been Father; that the Word was the creat- 
ure and handiwork of the Father ; that the Son was 
not like the Father according to substance and was 
neither the true Word nor the true Wisdom, having 
been created by the Word and Wisdom which are in 
God ; that by His nature He was subject to change 
like all other rational creatures ; that the Son does 
not perfectly know either the Father or His own es- 
sence, and that Jesus Christ is not true God. The 
majority of the bishops listened with horror as Arius 



t^ -VWtJ UJ-Tu-rvii-l^^j .i> !^-'(/U-^ 



ri 



196 Constantine 

thus unfolded his daring and, in their ears, blas- 
phemous creed. One of them at length put a 
searching test question. " If," he asked, " the Word 
of God is subject to change, would it have been pos- 
sible for the Word to change, as Satan had changed, 
from goodness to wickedness?" "Yes," came the 
answer. Thereupon the synod promptly excom- 
municated Arius and his friends, including two 
bishops, Secundus of Ptolemais in the Pentapolis 
and Theonas of Marmorica, together with six priests 
and six deacons. The synod also anathematised his 
doctrines. The Arian heresy had formally begun. 
Arius quitted Alexandria and betook himself to 
Palestine, where he and his companions received 
hospitable treatment at the hands of some of the 
bishops, notably Eusebius of Csesarea and Paulinus 
of Tyre. He bore himself very modestly, assuming 
the role not of a rebel against authority, but of one 
who had been deeply wronged, because he had been 
grievously misunderstood. He was no longer the 
turbulent priest, strong in the knowledge of his intel- 
lectual superiority over his bishop, but a minister of 
the Church who had been cast out from among the 
faithful and whose one absorbing desire was to be 
restored to communion. He did not ask his kindly 
hosts to associate themselves with him. He merely 
begged that they should use their good ofilices with 
Alexander to effect a reconciliation, and that they 
should not refuse to treat him as a true member 
of the Church. A few, like Macarius of Jerusalem, 
rejected his overtures, but a large number of bishops 
in the Province — if we may so term it — of the Patri- 



The Arian Controversy 19!^ 

arch of Antioch acceded to his wishes. No doubt 
Arius presented his case, when he was suing for 
recognition and favour, in a very different form from 
that in which he had presented it from the rostrum 
of his church at Baucalis. He was as subtle in his 
knowledge of the ways of the world as in his know- 
ledge of the processes of logic. Nevertheless, he can- 
not possibly have disguised the main doctrine which 
he had preached for years — the doctrine, that is to 
say, that the Son was inferior to the Father and had 
been created by the Father out of a substance other 
than His own — and the fact that the champion of such 
a doctrine received recognition at the hands of so 
many bishops seems to prove that the Church had not 
yet formulated her belief in respect of this mystery 
with anything like precision ; that theories similar to 
those advocated by Arius were rife throughout the 
East and were by no means repugnant to the general 
tendency of its thought. 

Arianism would naturally, and did actually, make 
a most potent appeal to minds of very varying 
quality and calibre. It appealed, for example, to 
those Christians who had not quite succeeded in 
throwing off the influences of the paganism around 
them, a class obviously large and comprising 
within it alike the educated who were under 
the spell of the religious philosophy of the Neo- 
Platonists, and the uneducated and illiterate who 
believed, or at any rate spoke as if they believed, 
in a multiplicity of gods. To minds, therefore, 
still insensibly thinking in terms of polytheism 
one can understand the attraction of the leading 



198 Constantine 

thought of Arianism, viz., one supreme, eternal, 
omnipotent God, God the Father, and a secondary 
God, God the Son, God and creature in one, and 
therefore the better fitted to be intermediary between 
the unapproachable God and fallen humanity. For 
how many long centuries had not the world 
believed in demi-gods as it had believed in 
gods? Arianism, on one side of its character, 
enabled men to cast a lingering look behind on an 
outworn creed which had not been wholly gross and 
which had not been too exacting for human frailty. 
Moreover, there were many texts in Holy Scripture 
which seemed in the most explicit language to cor- 
roborate the truth of Arius's teaching. " My Father 
is greater than I," so Christ had Himself said, and 
the obvious and literal meaning of the words seemed 
entirely inconsistent with any essential co-equality 
of Son and Father. The text, of course, is subject 
to another — if more recondite — interpretation, but 
the history of religion has shewn that the origin of 
most sects has been due to people fastening upon 
individual texts and founding upon them doctrines 
both great and small. 

Again, — and perhaps this was the strongest claim 
that Arianism could put forward, — it appealed to 
men's pride and belief in the adequacy of their 
reason. Mankind has always hungered after a re- 
ligious system based on reason, founded in reason; 
secure against all objectors, something four-square 
and solid against all possible assailants. Arianism 
claimed to provide such a system, and it unquestion- 
ably had the greater appearance — at any rate to a 



The Arian Controversy 199 

superficial view — of being based upon irrefutable ar- 
gument. Canon Bright put the case very well where 
he wrote* : 

" Arianism would appeal to not a few minds by adopt- 
ing a position virtually rationalistic, and by promising to 
secure a Christianity which should stand clear of phi- 
losophical objections, and Catholics would answer by 
insisting that the truths pertaining to the Divine Nature 
must be pre-eminently matter of adoring faith, that it 
was rash to speculate beyond the limit of revelation, and 
that the Arian position was itself open to criticism from 
reason's own point of view. Arians would call on 
Catholics to ' be logical ' ; to admit the prior existence 
of the Father as involved in the very primary notion of 
fatherhood; to halt no more between a premiss and a 
conclusion, to exchange their sentimental pietism for 
convictions sustainable by argument. And Catholics 
would bid them in turn remember the inevitably limited 
scope of human logic in regard to things divine and 
would point out the sublime uniqueness of the divine 
relation called Fatherhood." 

If we consider the subsequent history of the Arian 
doctrine, its continual rebirth, the permanent appeal 
which, in at least some of its phases, it makes to 
certain types of intellect including some of the 
loftiest and shrewdest, there can be no reason for 
surprise that Arius met with so much recognition 
and sympathy, even among those who refused him 
their active and definite support. Alexander was 
both troubled and annoyed to find that so many of 

* The Age of the Fathers, chap. vi. 



200 Constantine 

the Eastern bishops took Arius's part, and he sent 
round a circular letter of remonstrance which had 
the effect of arousing some of these kindly ecclesi- 
astics to a sense of the danger which lurked in the 
Arian doctrine. But Arius was soon to find his 
ablest and most influential champion in the person of 
another Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia. 
This Eusebius had been Bishop of Berytus (Beyrout), 
and it has been thought that he owed his translation 
from that see to the more important one of Nico- 
media to the influence of Constantia, sister of 
Constantine and wife of Licinius. He had, at any 
rate, been sufficiently astute to obtain the good-will 
of Constantine on the fall of his old patron and he 
stood well with the court circle. 

He and Arius were old friends, for they had been 
fellow-pupils of the famous Lucian of Antioch. It 
has been suggested that Eusebius was rather the 
teacher than the pupil of Arius, but probably neither 
word expresses the true relationship. They were 
simply old friends who thought very much alike. 
Arius's letter to Eusebius asking for his help is one 
of the most interesting documents of the period. 
Arius writes with hot indignation of the persecution 
to which he has been subjected by Alexander, who, 
he says, had expelled him and his friends from Alex- 
andria as impious atheists because they had refused 
to subscribe to the outrageous doctrines which the 
Bishop professed. He then gives in brief his version 
of Alexander's teaching and of his own, which he de- 
clares is that of Eusebius of Caesarea and all the 
Eastern bishops, with the exception of a few. " We 



The Arian Controversy 201 

are persecuted," he continues, " because we have said, 
'the Son has a beginning, but God is without a be- 
ginning,' and ' the Son is made of that which is not,' 
and ' the Son is not part of God nor is he of any 
substance.' " It is the letter of a man angry at what 
he conceives to be the harsh treatment meted out to 
him, and it has the ring of honesty about it, for even 
though it distorts the views put forward by Alex- 
ander, there never yet was a convinced theologian 
who stated his opponent's case precisely as that op- 
ponent would state it for himself. 

We have not Eusebius's answer to this letter, the 
closing sentence of which begged him as " a true fel- 
low-pupil of Lucian" not to fail him. But we know at 
least that it was favourable, for we next find Arius 
at Nicomedia itself, under the wing of the popular 
and powerful Bishop, who vigorously stood up for 
his friend. Eusebius wrote more than once to Alex- 
ander pleading the cause of the banished presbyter, 
and Arius himself also wrote to his old Bishop, re- 
stating his convictions and reopening the entire ques- 
tion in a temperate form. The tone of that letter 
certainly compares most favourably with that of the 
famous document which Alexander addressed to his 
namesake at Byzantium, warning him to be on guard 
against Arius and his friends. He can find no epi- 
thets strong enough in which to describe them. 
They are possessed of the Devil, who dwells in them 
and goads them to fury ; they are jugglers and trick- 
sters, clever conjurors with seductive words ; they 
are brigands who have built lairs for themselves 
wherein day and night they curse Christ and the 



202 Constantine 

faithful ; they are no better than the Jews or Greeks 
or pagans, whose good opinion they eagerly covet, 
joining them in scofifing at the Catholic doctrine and 
stirring up faction and persecution. The Bishop in 
his fury even declares that the Arians are threaten- 
ing lawsuits against the Church at the instance of 
disorderly women whom they have led astray, and 
accuses them of seeking to make proselytes through 
the agency of the loose young women of the town. 
In short, they have torn the unbroken tunic of 
Christ. And so on throughout the letter. 

The historians of the Church have done the cause 
of truth a poor service in concealing or glossing over 
the outrageous language employed by the Patriarch, 
whose violence raises the suspicion that he must 
have been conscious of the weakness of his own di- 
alectical power in thus disqualifying his opponents 
and ruling them out of court as a set of frantic 
madmen. "What impious arrogance," he exclaims. 
" What measureless madness ! What vainglorious 
melancholy ! What a devilish spirit it is that 
indurates their unholy souls!" Even when every al- 
lowance is made, this method of conducting a contro- 
versy creates prejudice against the person employing 
it. It is, moreover, in the very sharpest contrast with 
the method employed by Arius, and with the tenor 
of the letter written by Eusebius of Nicomedia to 
Paulinus of Tyre, praying him to write to " My lord, 
Alexander." Eusebius hotly resented the tone of 
the Patriarch's letter, and, summoning a synod of 
Bithynian bishops, laid the whole matter before 
them for discussion. Sympathising with Arius, 



The Arian Controversy 203 

these bishops addressed a circular letter " to all the 
bishops throughout the Empire," begging them not 
to deny communion to the Arians and also to seek 
to induce Alexander to do the same. Alexander, 
however, stood out for unconditional surrender. 

Arius returned to Palestine, where three bishops 
permitted him to hold services for his followers, and 
the wordy war continued. Alexander drew up a 
long encyclical which he addressed " to all his fellow- 
workers of the universal Catholic Church," couched 
in language not quite so violent as that which he 
had employed in writing to the Bishop of Byzantium, 
yet denouncing the Arians in no measured terms as 
" lawless men and fighters against Christ, teaching 
an apostasy which one may rightly describe as pre- 
paring the way for anti-Christ." In it he attacks 
Eusebius of Nicomedia by name, accusing him of 
"believing that the welfare of the Church depended 
upon his nod," and of championing the cause of Arius 
not because he sincerely believed the Arian doctrine 
so much as in order to further his own ambitious 
interests. Evidently, this was not the first time that 
the two prelates had been at variance, and private 
animosities accentuated their doctrinal differences. 
The more closely the original authorities are studied, 
the more evident is the need for caution in accept- 
ing the traditional character sketches of Arius and 
Eusebius of Nicomedia. Alexander declares that 
he is prostrated with sorrow at the thought that 
Arius and his friends are eternally lost, after having 
once known the truth and denied it. But he adds, 
" I am not surprised. Did not Judas betray his 



204 Constantine 

Master after being a disciple ? " We are sceptical 
of Alexander's sorrow. He closes his letter with a 
plea for the absolute excommunication of the Arians. 
Christians must have nothing to do with the enemies 
of Christ and the destroyers of souls. They must 
not even ofTer them the compliment of a morning 
salutation. To say " Good-morning " to an Arian 
was to hold communication with the lost. Such a 
manifesto merely added fuel to the fire, and the two 
parties drew farther and farther apart. 

Nor was Arius idle. It must have been about this 
time that he composed the notorious poem, Thalia, 
in which he embodied his doctrines. He selected 
the metre of a pagan poet, Sotades of Crete, of whom 
we know nothing save that his verses had the re- 
putation of being exceedingly licentious. Arius did 
this of deliberate purpose. His object was to pop- 
ularise his doctrines. Sotades had a vogue ; Arius 
desired one. What he did was precisely similar to 
what in our own time the Salvation Army has done 
in setting its hymns to the popular tunes and music- 
hall ditties of the day. This was at first a cause of 
scandal to many worthy people, who now admit the 
cleverness and admire the shrewdness of the idea. 
Similarly, Arius got people to sing his doctrines to 
the very tunes to which they had previously sung 
the indecencies of Sotades. He wrote ballads, so we 
are told by Philostorgius — the one Arian historian 
who has survived — for sailors, millers, and travellers. 
But it is certainly difificult to understand their popu- 
larity, judging from the isolated fragments which 
are quoted by Athanasius in his First Discourse 



The Arian Controversy 205 

Against t/ze Artans {chap. k'u). According to Ath- 
anasius, the Thalia opened as follows : 

" According to faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones, 

Holy children, rightly dividing, God's Holy Spirit re- 
ceiving, 

Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom, 

Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things. 

Along their track have I been walking, with like 
opinions. 

I am very famous, the much suffering for God's 
glory, 

And taught of God, I have acquired wisdom and 
knowledge." 

It is rather the unspeakable tediousness and frigid- 
ity of this exordium than its arrogant impiety that 
strike the modern reader. Athanasius then proceeds 
to quote examples of Arius's " repulsive and most 
impious mockeries." For example, " God was not al- 
ways a Father ; there was once a time when God was 
alone and was not yet a Father. But afterwards He 
became a Father." Or, " the Son was not always," 
or " the Word is not very God, but by participation 
in Grace, He, as all others, is God only in name." If 
these are good specimens of what Athanasius 
calls " the fables to be found in Arius's jocose com- 
position," the standard of the jocose or the ridicu- 
lous must have altered greatly. Why such a poem 
should have been called the Thalia or " Merrymak- 
ing," it is hard to conceive. 

Yet, one can understand how the ribald wits of 
Alexandria gladly seized upon this portentous con- 



2o6 Constantine 

troversy and twisted its prominent phrases into the 
catch-words of the day. There is a passage in 
Gregory of Nyssa bearing on this subject which has 
frequently been quoted. 

" Every corner of Constantinople," he says, " was full 
of their discussions, the streets, the market-place, the 
shops of the money-changers and the victuallers. Ask a 
tradesman how many obols he wants for some article in 
his shop, and he replies with a disquisition on generated 
and ungenerated being. Ask the price of bread to-day, 
and the baker tells you, ' The Son is subordinate to the 
Father.' Ask your servant if the bath is ready and he 
makes answer, ' Tht Son arose out of nothing.' ' Great 
is the only Begotten,' declared the Catholics, and the 
Arians rejoined, ' But greater is He that begot.' " 

It was a subject that lent itself to irreverent 
jesting and cheap profanity. The baser sort of 
Arians appealed to boys to tell them whether there 
were one or two Ingenerates, and to women to say 
whether a son could exist before he was born. Even 
in the present day, any theological doctrine which 
has the misfortune to become the subject of excited 
popular debate is inevitably dragged through the 
mire by the ignorant partisanship and gross scur- 
rilities of the contending factions. We may be sure 
that the "Ariomaniacs " — as they are called — were 
neither worse nor better than the champions of the 
Catholic side, and the result was tumult and dis- 
order. In fact, says Eusebius of Caesarea, 

" in every city bishops were engaged in obstinate conflict 
with bishops, people rose against people, and almost, like 



The Arian Controversy 207 

the fabled Symplegades, came into violent collision with 
each other. Nay, some were so far transported beyond 
the bounds of reason as to be guilty of reckless and out- 
rageous conduct and even to insult the statues of the 
Emperor." 

Constantine felt obliged to intervene and addressed 
a long letter to Alexander and Arius, which he con- 
fided to the care of his spiritual adviser, Hosius, 
Bishop of Cordova, bidding him go to Alexandria 
in person and do what he could to mediate between 
the disputants. We need not give the text in full. 
Constantine began with his usual exordium. His 
consuming passion, he said, was for unity of religious 
opinion, as the precursor and best guarantee of 
peace. Deeply disappointed by Africa, he had 
hoped for better things from "the bosom of the 
East," whence had arisen the dawn of divine light. 
Then he continues : 

"But Ah! glorious and Divine Providence, what a 
wound was inflicted not alone on my ears but on my 
heart, when I heard that divisions existed among your- 
selves, even more grievous than those of Africa, so that 
you, through whose agency I hoped to bring healing 
to others, need a remedy worse than they. And yet, 
after making careful enquiry into the origin of these dis- 
cussions, I find that the cause is quite insignificant and 
entirely disproportionate to such a quarrel.* ... I 
gather then that the present controversy originated as 
follows. For when you, Alexander, asked each of the 

reiKi'ai rj itp6cpa6iZ. 



2o8 Constantine 

presbyters what he thought about a certain passage in 
the Scriptures, or rather what he thought about a certain 
aspect of a foolish question, and you, Arius, without due 
consideration laid down propositions which never ought 
to have been conceived at all, or, if conceived, ought to 
have been buried in silence, dissension arose between 
you ; communion was forbidden ; and the most holy 
people, torn in twain, no longer preserved the unity of a 
common body." 

The Emperor then exhorts them to let both the 
unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer 
be forgotten and forgiven. The subject, he says, 
never ought to have been broached, but there is 
always mischief found for idle hands to do and idle 
brains to think. The difference between you, he 
insists, has not arisen on any cardinal doctrine laid 
down in the Scriptures, nor has any new doctrine 
been introduced. "You hold one and the same 
view";* reunion, therefore, is easily possible. So 
little does the Emperor appreciate the importance of 
the questions at issue, that he goes on to quote the 
example of the pagan philosophers who agree to 
disagree on details, while holding the same general 
principles. How then, he asks, can it be right for 
brethren to behave towards one another like enemies 
because of mere trifling and verbal differences ?f 
"Such conduct is vulgar, childish, and petulant, ill- 
befitting priests of God and men of sense. It is a 
wile and temptation of the Devil. Let us have done 



* dXX' sva Hal zov avvov e'x^^^ Xoyt6udv. 

f di oXtyai uai /uaraiai pTjjudrcDV kv rj/j.lv (piXovsiHiai. 



The Arian Controversy 209 

with it. If we cannot all think alike on all topics, 
we can at least all be united on the great essentials. 
As far as regards divine Providence, let there be 
one faith and one understanding, one united opinion 
in reference to God." And then the letter concludes 
with the passionate outburst : 

"Restore me then my quiet days and untroubled 
nights, that I may retain my joy in the pure light and, 
for the rest of my days, enjoy the gladness of a peaceful 
hfe. Else I needs must groan and be diffused wholly in 
tears, and know no comfort of mind till I die. For 
while the people of God, my fellow-servants, are thus 
torn asunder in unlawful and pernicious controversy, how 
can I be of tranquil mind ? " 

Some have seen in this letter proof of the 
Emperor's consummate wisdom, and have described 
its language as golden and the triumph of common 
sense. It seems to us a complete exposure of his 
profound ignorance of the subject in which he had 
interfered. It was easy to say that the question 
should not have been raised. " Quieta non movere' 
is an excellent motto in theology as in politics. But 
this was precisely one of those questions which, 
when once raised, are bound to go forward to an 
issue. The time was ripe for it. It suited the taste 
and temper of the age, and the resultant storm of 
controversy, so easily stirred up, was not easily 
allayed. For Constantine to tell Alexander and 
Arius that theirs was merely a verbal quarrel on an 
insignificant and non-essential point, or that they 
were really of one and the same mind, and held one 



2IO 



Constantine 



and the same view on all essentials, was grotesquely 
absurd. The question at issue was none other than 
the Divine Nature of the Son of God. If theology 
is of any value or importance at all, it is impossible 
to conceive a more essential problem. 




CHAPTER XI 

THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A 

CONSTANTINE'S letter was fruitless. Hosius 
sought to play the peacemaker in vain. 
Neither Alexander nor Arius desired peace except 
at the price of the other's submission, and neither 
was prepared to submit. Hosius, therefore, did not 
remain long in Alexandria, and, returning to Con- 
stantine, recommended him to summon a Council of 
the Church. The advice pleased the Emperor, who 
at once issued letters calling upon the bishops to as- 
semble at Nicaea, in Bithynia, in the month of June, 
325. The invitations were accepted with alacrity, 
for Constantine placed at the disposal of the bishops 
the posting system of the Empire, thus enabling 
them to travel comfortably, expeditiously, and at no 
cost to themselves. 

" They were impelled," says Eusebius,* " by the an- 
ticipation of a happy result to the conference, by the 
hope of enjoying present peace, and by the desire of be- 
holding something new and strange in the person of so 
admirable an Emperor. And when they were all 



^ De Vita Constant., Hi., 6. 

211 



212 Constantine 

assembled, it appeared evident that the proceeding was 
the work of God, inasmuch as men, who had been 
most widely separated not merely in sentiment but by 
differences of country, place, and nation, were here 
brought together within the walls of a single city, forming 
as it were a vast garland of priests, composed of a variety 
of the choicest flowers." 

The Council of Nicaea was the first of the great 
CEcumenical Councils of the Church. There had 
been nothing like it before ; nor could there have 
been, for no pagan Emperor would have tolerated 
such an assembly. The exact number of those present 
is not known. Eusebius, with irritating and unnec- 
essary vagueness, says that " the bishops exceeded 
two hundred and fifty, while the number of the pres- 
byters and deacons in their train and the crowd of 
acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond 
computation." There are sundry lists of names re- 
corded by the ecclesiastical historians, but unfortun- 
ately all are incomplete. However, as a confident 
legend grew up within fifty years of the Council that 
the bishops were 318 in number, and as the Council 
itself became known as "The Council of the 318," 
we may accept that figure without much demur. 
Very few came from the West. Hosius of Cordova 
seems to have been the only representative of the 
Spanish Church, and Nacasius of Divio the only repre- 
sentative of Gaul. The Bishops of Aries, Autun, 
Lyons, Treves, Narbonne, Marseilles, Toulouse — all 
cities of first-class importance — were absent. Eus- 
torgius came from Milan; Marcus from Calabria; 
Capito from Sicily. The aged Sylvester of Rome 



The Council of Nicaea 213 

would have attended, had his physical infirmities 
permitted, but he sent two presbyters to speak for 
him, Vito and Vincentius. Bishop Domnus of 
Stridon represented Pannonia, and Theophilus the 
Goth came on behalf of the northern barbarians — 
probably to listen rather than to speak. Evidently, 
then, the composition of the Council was overwhelm- 
ingly Eastern. Greek, not Latin, was the language 
spoken, and certainly Greek, not Latin, was the heresy 
under discussion, for the Arian controversy could not 
have arisen in the western half of the Empire. For 
all practical purposes the Council of Nicsea was a well- 
attended synod of the Syrian and Egyptian Churches. 
The opinions there expounded were the opinions of 
the Christian schools of Antioch and Alexandria. 

We may take the names of a few of the bishops 
as they pass through the gates of Nicaea, each accom- 
panied by at least two presbyters and three slaves, 
riding on horseback or in carriages, with a train of 
baggage animals following. Alexander was there, 
bringing with him fourteen bishops from the valley 
of the Nile and five from Libya. The most con- 
spicuous of these were Potammon of Heracleopolis 
and Paphnutius from the Thebaid, both of whom 
had lost an eye in the late persecution, while Paph- 
nutius limped painfully, for he had been hamstrung. 
Eustathius, the Patriarch of Antioch, came at the 
head of the Syrian and Palestinian bishops, some of 
whom, like Eusebius of Caesarea, were gravely sus- 
pected of being unsound in the Faith and of having 
been influenced by the seductions of Arianism, while 
others, like Macarius of Jerusalem, were staunch 



214 Constantine 

supporters of Alexander. Another group hailed from 
the far Euphrates and Armenia — John of Persia, 
James of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Aitallaha of Edessa, 
and Paul of Neo-Csesarea, the tendons of whose wrists 
had been seared with hot irons. Another group 
came from near at hand, the bishops of what we 
now call Asia Minor, within the sphere of influence 
of the imperial city of Nicomedia and of its Bishop, 
Eusebius. He, too, was there with his friends, The- 
ognis of Nicsea, Menophantus of Ephesus, and Maris 
of Chalcedon, all committed to the cause and to the 
doctrines of Arius. Then there were a group of 
Thracian, Macedonian, and Greek bishops, a few 
from the islands, and Caecilianus from Carthage. 

Arius, too, was present with his few faithful hench- 
men from Egypt, proudly self-confident as ever, but 
trusting mainly to the advocacy of Eusebius of Nico- 
media and to the influence of the moderates, like 
Eusebius of Caesarea. But during the years that he 
had been absent from Alexandria a new protagonist 
had arisen among the ranks of his opponents. Alex- 
ander, so runs the legend, had one day seen from the 
windows of his house a group of boys playing at 
" church." Thinking that the imitation was too close 
to the reality and that the lads were carrying the game 
too far, the Bishop went out to check them and got 
into conversation with the boy who was taking the 
lead in their serious sport. Impressed by his earnest- 
ness, he took him into his house and trained him for 
the ministry. It was Athanasius, who now, as a 
young deacon of twenty-five, accompanied Alex- 
ander to Nicaea, having already by his cleverness and 



The Council of Nicaea 215 

zeal gained a remarkable ascendency over the mind 
of his superior. This slip of a man — for he was of 
very slender build and insignificant stature — was to 
lay at Nicaea the sure foundations of his extraordin- 
ary and unparalleled fame as the champion of the 
Catholic Faith. 

So the Council assembled in the June of 325 in 
the charming city of Nicaea, on the shores of the 
Ascanian lake. The intense interest which it aroused 
was not confined to those who were to take part in 
it, or even to the Christian population of the city and 
district. It spread, so we are expressly told, to those 
who still clung to the old religion. Debates on the 
nature of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of 
Christ would be almost as welcome and absorbing to 
a Neo-Platonist philosopher as to a Christian bishop. 
His pleasure in the intellectual exercise was marred 
by no anxiety lest it should result in disturbance of 
happy and settled belief. When Greek met Greek 
they began forthwith to argue, and so, without wait- 
ing for the Council formally to open, the early arriv- 
als at Nicaea commenced their discussions with all 
comers on the question of the hour. 

The story of one of these informal encounters is 
told by most of the ecclesiastical writers. A certain 
pagan philosopher was holding forth with great flu- 
ency and making mock of the Christian mysteries, to 
the amusement of a number of bystanders. Finally, 
his challenge of contradiction was accepted by " a 
simple old man, one of the confessors of the persecu- 
tion," who knew nothing of dialectics. As he moved 
forward to answer the scoffer there was a burst of 



2i6 Constantine 

laughter from some of those present, while the Chris- 
tians trembled lest their unskilled champion should 
be turned to ridicule by his practised opponent. Their 
anxiety, however, was soon set at rest. " In the name 
of Jesus Christ, O philosopher, listen ! " Such was the 
old man's exordium, and the burden of his few un- 
studied words was to restate his " artless, unques- 
tioning belief " "^ in the cardinal truths of Christianity. 
There was no argument. " If you beheve," he said, 
" tell me so." " I believe," said the philosopher, 
compelled, as he afterwards explained it, to become 
a Christian by some marvellous power. Such is the 
version of Sozomen ; according to Socrates the old 
man said, " Christ and the apostles committed to us 
no dialectical art and no vain deception, but plain, 
bare doctrine, which is guarded by faith and good 
works." f When we consider the endless floods of 
dialectical subtlety which were poured out during 
and after the Council of Nicaea by those engaged in 
the Arian controversy, it seems rather biting irony 
that a pagan philosopher should have been thus 
easily and rapidly converted from darkness to light. 
It is certain, however, that many of the bishops 
collected at Nicaea belonged to the same class as this 
"simple old man," peasants who had had no theo- 
logical training and owed their elevation — by the 
suffrages of their congregations — to the conspicuous 
uprightness of their lives. Such a one was Spyridion, 
of Cyprus, a shepherd in mind, speech, and dress, but 



* drceptspyoo? Ttidrszo/iisv. 

\ yvjxvrjv yvajfxrjv, Tti6vEi Hcci xaXoi's epyoi? ^vXarro- 
/uevTjv. — Socrates, i., 8. 



The Council of Nicaea 217 

with a turn for rustic humour. Around his name 
many legends have gathered, and none is more de- 
lightful than that which tells how he and his deacon 
set out for Nicaea mounted on two mules, a white 
and a chestnut. On the journey they came to an 
inn where they found a number of other bishops 
bound on the same errand. These prelates feared 
that so rustic a figure as Spyridion would bring dis- 
credit on their religion and appear in grotesque con- 
trast with the splendour of the Imperial Court. So 
during the night they caused the two mules to be 
decapitated, thinking that they would thus prevent 
Spyridion from resuming his journey. The good 
Bishop was aroused before daybreak by his deacon, 
who told him of the disaster. Spyridion simply 
bade him attach the heads to the dead bodies, and, 
on this being done, the mules rose to their feet as 
though nothing unusual had happened. When day 
broke, it was found that the deacon had attached 
the heads to the wrong shoulders ; the white mule 
now sported a chestnut head and the chestnut a 
white. Still, it was not thought necessary to repeat 
the miracle and change the heads, for the mules ap- 
parently suffered no inconvenience. 

The preliminary meetings of the Council were held 
in the principal church of Nicaea and continued until 
the arrival of the Emperor, which was not until after 
July 3rd, the anniversary of his victory over Licinius. 
Then the state opening took place in the great hall 
of the palace. Eusebius gives us a graphic account 
of the memorable scene.* Special invitations had 

* De Vita Constant, ^ iii., lo. 



2i8 Constantine 

been sent to all whose presence was desired, and 
these had entered and taken their places in grave 
and orderly fashion on either side of the hall. Then 
expectant silence fell upon the company. As the 
moment for the Emperor's entry approached, some 
of the members of his immediate entourage began to 
arrive, but Eusebius is careful to mention that there 
were no guards or officers in armour, " only friends 
who avowed the faith of Christ." At the signal that 
Constantine was at hand, the whole assembly swept 
to its feet, and the Emperor passed through their 
midst like " some heavenly angel of God, clad in 
glittering raiment that seemed to gleam and flash 
with bright effulgent rays of light, encrusted as it 
was with gold and precious stones." Yet, though 
Constantine was thus dazzling in externals, it was 
evident — at least to the penetrating eye of the 
courtier bishop — that his mind was "beautified by 
pity and godly fear." For was not this revealed by 
his downcast eyes, his heightened colour, and his 
modest bearing? Advancing to the upper end of 
the hall, Constantine stood facing the assembly, 
while a low golden stool was brought for him, and 
then, when the bishops motioned to him to be 
seated, he took his seat, and the whole audience fol- 
lowed his example. Beyond doubt, most of the 
bishops then gazed for the first time upon the Em- 
peror to whom they could not be sufficiently grateful 
for all he had done for the Church, and Constantine 
himself might well be flattered and pleased at the 
homage, evidently sincere, that was being offered to 
him, as well as a little nervous at the thought that 



The Council of Nicaea 219 

these were the principal ministers and representatives 
of the God to whom he had tendered allegiance. 
There would have been no downcast eye, no blush, 
no marked modesty of carriage, we may suspect, if 
it had been a council of augurs and flamens that 
Constantine had summoned. In that case the Em- 
peror would have been perfectly at his ease as he 
advanced up the hall, conscious that he was the 
supreme head of all the priesthoods represented in 
his presence, and that he was not only worshipper 
but worshipped. 

Then, says Eusebius, after a few introductory 
words of welcome had been spoken, the Emperor 
rose and dehvered a brief address in Latin which 
was presently translated into Greek. He expressed 
his delight at finding himself in the presence of such 
a Council, " united in a common harmony of senti- 
ment," and prayed that no malignant enemy might 
avail to disturb it, for " internal dissensions in the 
Church of God were far more to be feared than any 
battle or war." In well chosen language he ex- 
plained the overwhelming importance of unity and 
implored his hearers as "dear friends, as ministers 
of God, and as faithful servants of their common 
Lord and Saviour," to begin from that moment to 
" discard the causes of dissension which had existed 
among them and loosen the knots of controversy 
by the laws of peace." The excellent impression 
created by this speech was intensified by the next 
act of the Emperor. On his arrival at Nicaea he 
had found awaiting him a great number of peti- 
tions addressed to him by the bishops accusing 



220 Constantine 

one another of heresy, or political intrigue, or too 
strenuous activity on behalf of the fallen Licinius. 
Socrates, indeed, says that " the majority of the 
Bishops " were levelling charges against one another. 
But they received no encouragement from Constan- 
tine. Seated there among them he produced the 
incriminatory documents from the folds of his toga, 
called for a brazier, and threw the rolls upon the fire, 
protesting with an oath that not one of them had 
been opened or read. " Christ," he said, " bids him 
who hopes for forgiveness forgive an erring brother." 
It was a dignified and noble rebuke. The story 
reads best in this, its simplest form. Theodoretus 
amplifies the Emperor's rebuke and puts into his 
mouth the dangerous doctrine that, if bishops sin, 
their offences ought to be hushed up, lest their 
flock be scandalised or be encouraged to follow 
their example. He would even, he said, throw his 
own purple over an offending bishop to avoid the 
evils and contagion of publicity. 

Such was the opening of the Council. The Em- 
peror had scored a great personal triumph and had 
set the bishops a notable example of magnanimity. 
But it was not imitated. No sooner had the actual 
business of the Council begun than the flood-gates 
of controversy were opened. According to Euse- 
bius, the Emperor remained to listen to their mu- 
tual recriminations, giving ear patiently to all sides, 
and doing what he could to assuage animosities by 
making the most of everything that seemed to 
tend towards compromise. Unfortunately, the re- 
ports of the Council are strangely incomplete. It 



The Council of Nicsea 221 

is not even explicitly stated who presided. The 
presidency of the Emperor was one only of honour; 
the actual presidents were probably the legates of 
Pope Sylvester, viz., Hosius of Cordova and the 
two presbyters, Vito and Vihcentius. But into the 
controversy which rages round this point we need 
not enter. 

The general feeling of the Council was not long in 
declaring itself. Arius, who was regarded as a de- 
fendant on his trial, made his position absolutely 
clear. He did not envelop himself, as he might 
have done, in a cloud of metaphysics from which it 
would have been diflficult to gather his precise mean- 
ing. On the contrary, he seems to have come pre- 
pared with a r^sum6 of his doctrines, and to have 
been ready to defend his outposts as resolutely as 
his citadel. Immediately, therefore, the Council 
became split up into contending parties. There were 
the out-and-out Arians, few but formidable, and the 
out-and-out Trinitarians, led with great ability by 
the young Athanasius, whose reputation steadily 
rose as the days passed by. There was also a mid- 
dle party, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia and sup- 
ported by Eusebius of Caesarea, whose intellectual 
and personal sympathies lay with Arius rather than 
with Athanasius, though they saw that the great 
majority of the Council were against them, and that 
Arius and his opinions were sure of excommunica- 
tion. Theirs was what we may call the " cross-bench 
mind." They doubtless felt, what many who ap- 
proach this controversy at the present day feel, that 
if once appeal is made to Reason, there must be no 



222 Constantine 

further appeal beyond that to Faith, as to a higher 
Court. Those who invoke Reason must not turn 
round, when they find themselves driven into an 
ugly corner, and condemn " the Pride of Reason." 
In our view, Eusebius of Nicomedia was not the ma- 
lignant, self-seeking, and entirely worldly prelate he 
is so often represented as having been, but a Bishop 
who honestly regretted that this question had been 
raised at all, inasmuch as he foresaw that it must 
rend the Church in twain. He would have preferred, 
that is to say, that the exact nature of the Sonship 
of Christ should not be made a matter of close defini- 
tion, should not be made a point of doctrine whereon 
salvation depended, should not be inserted in a creed, 
but left rather to the individual conscience or to the 
individual intellect. Once the question was raised, 
his intellectual honesty led him to side with Arius, 
but he considered that to tear the indivisible gar- 
ment of Christ was a crime to be avoided at any 
cost. Eusebius was bent upon a compromise. Arius 
was his old friend, and his patron, the Emperor, pas- 
sionately desired unity. The personal wish of the 
monarch would be sure to have some, though we 
cannot say precisely how much, weight with him in 
determining his policy. 

Some of the sessions of the Council were marked 
by uproar and violence. Athanasius declares that 
when the bishops heard extracts read from the Thalia 
of Arius, they raised the cry of " impious," and 
closed their eyes and shut their ears tight against 
the admission of such appalling blasphemy. There 
is a legend, indeed, that St. Nicholas, Bishop of 



The Council of Nicaea 223 

Myra, was so carried away by his indignation that he 
smote Arius a terrific blow upon the jaw for daring 
to give utterance to words so vile. Theodoretus 
declares that the Arians drew up the draft of a creed 
which they were willing to subscribe and had it read 
before the Council. But it was at once denounced 
as a " bastard and vile-begotten document " and 
torn to pieces. Then a praiseworthy attempt was 
made to begin at the beginning. The proposition 
was put forward that the Son was from God. 
"Agreed," said the Trinitarians; "Agreed," said 
the Arians, on the authority of such texts as " There 
is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things," 
and "All things are become new and all things 
are of God." " But will you agree," asked the Trin- 
itarians, " that the Son is the true Power and Image 
of the Father, Hke to Him in all things, His eter- 
nal Image, undivided from Him and unalterable ? " 
" Yes," said the Arians after some discussion among 
themselves, and they quoted the texts : " Man is the 
glory and image of God," " For we which live are 
always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake," and 
" In him we live and move and have our being." 
" But will you admit," continued the Trinitarians, 
"that the Son is Very God?" "Yes," replied the 
Arians, " for he is Very God if he has been made 
so." Athanasius tells us that while these strange 
questions and answers were being tossed from one 
side of the Council to the other, he saw the Arians 
"whispering and making signals one to the other 
with their eyes." It is to be regretted that we 
have no independent account. The savage abuse 



224 Constantine 

with which Athanasius attacks the Arians in his 
" Letter to the African Bishops " makes his version 
of what took place at the Council exceedingly sus- 
pect. He speaks of their " wiliness," and delivers 
himself of the sarcasm that as they were cradled in 
ordure their arguments also partook of a similar 
character.* Most of the vilification in the opening 
stages of the Arian controversy — at any rate most of 
that which has survived — seems to have been on the 
Trinitarian side. 

The word " Homoousion" had at length been 
uttered and, strangely enough, by Eusebius of Nico- 
media, though it was soon to become the rallying 
cry of his opponents. He had employed it, ap- 
parently, to clinch the argument against the Trini- 
tarians, for, he said, if they declared the Son to be 
Very God, that was tantamount to declaring that 
the Son was of one substance with the Father. 
Greatly, no doubt, to his surprise, it was seized upon 
by his opponents as the word which, of all others, 
precisely crystallised their position and their objec- 
tions to Arianism. But before the fight began to 
rage round this word, the moderates came forward 
with another suggestion of compromise. Eusebius 
of Caesarea read before the Council the confession of 
faith which was in use in his diocese, after having 
been handed down from bishop to bishop. The 
Emperor had read it and approved ; perhaps, he 
urged, it might similarly commend itself to the ac- 
ceptance of all parties in the Council. The creed 
began as follows : 

* avroi (xhv oSs an Koitpia'i ovTsi eXaXijdav dX?fd(S5 ano yrji. 



The Council of Nicsea 225 

" I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of 
all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of 
Light, Life of Life, the only-begotten Son, the First-born 
of every creature, begotten of the Father before all 
worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who for 
our salvation was made flesh and lived amongst men, 
and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and as- 
cended to the Father, and shall come in glory to judge 
the quick and the dead. And I believe in the Holy 
Ghost." 

Eusebius, in writing later to the people of his diocese, 
said that when this creed was read out, 

" no room for contradiction appeared ; but our most 
pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it com- 
prised most orthodox statements. He confessed, more- 
over, that such were his sentiments, and he advised all 
present to agree to it, and subscribe to its articles with 
the insertion of the single word 'one in substance.' " 

Indeed, little objection could be taken to the creed 
of Eusebius, which might have been subscribed to 
with equal sincerity by Arius and Alexander. But 
the great problem, which had brought the Coun- 
cil together, would have remained entirely unsettled. 
The creed was not sufficiently precise. It left open- 
ings for all kinds of heresies. The Trinitarians, 
therefore, insisted upon inserting a few words which 
should more precisely define the relationship between 
the Father and the Son and their real nature and 
substance, and should retain undiminished the ma- 
jesty and Godhead of the Son. They put forward 



226 Constantine 

the simple antithesis " begotten not made " in refer- 
ence to the Son, whereby the Arian doctrine that the 
Son was a creature was effectually negatived. And 
they also adopted as their own the word which has 
made the Council famous alike with believers and 
with sceptics — the word " Homoousion." 

Dean Stanley, in his History of the Eastern 
Church,^ has well said that this is " one of those 
remarkable words which creep into the language of 
philosophy and theology and then suddenly acquire 
a permanent hold on the minds of men." It was 
a word with a notable, if not a very remote past. It 
had been orthodox and heretical by turns, a fact 
which is not surprising when we consider the vague- 
ness of the term " ousia " and the looseness with 
which it had been employed by philosophical writers. 

"It first distinctly appeared," says Dean Stanley, 
*' in the statement, given by Irenseus, of the doctrines 
of Valentius; then for a moment it acquired a more 
orthodox reputation in the writings of Dionysius and 
Theognostus of Alexandria; then it was coloured with a 
dark shade by association with the teaching of Manes ; 
next proposed as a test of orthodoxy at the Council 
of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, and then by that 
same Council was condemned as Sabellian." 

Obviously, therefore, it was not a word to com- 
mand instantaneous acceptance; its old associations 
lent a certain specious weight to the repeated ac- 
cusation of the Arians that the Trinitarians were 
importing into the Church fantastic subtleties bor- 

* Lecture iv. 



The Council of Nicaea 227 

rowed from Greek philosophy, and were encrusting 
the simple faith and the simple language of Christ 
and the apostles with alien thoughts and formulae. 
Athanasius meets that argument with a 'Hu quoque," 
asking where in Scripture one can find the phrases 
which Arius had made his own. Modern theologians 
have replied with much greater force that this im- 
portation of philosophy into the Christian religion 
was inevitable. 

" The Church," says Canon Bright,* " had come out 
into the open, had been obliged to construct a theologi- 
cal position against the tremendous attacks of Gnosti- 
cism and to provide for educated enquirers in the great 
centres of Greek learning. She had become conscious 
of her debt to the wise. 

Elsewhere, in the same chapter, he says : " It 
would, indeed, have been childish to attempt to 
banish metaphysics from theology. Any religion 
with a doctrine about God or man must, as such, be 
metaphysical." And for the Arians to complain of 
the borrowing of technical terms from philosophy by 
their opponents was palpably absurd. The whole rai- 
son d'etre of the Arian movement was its professed 
rationalism, its appeal to reason and logic, its con- 
sciousness, in other words, " of its debt to the wise," 
and its desire to be able to debate boldly with the 
enemy in the gate. Really, therefore, the adoption 
of such a term was of great practical convenience, 
especially when once its meaning was rigidly defined. 
The Homoousion, whereby the Word or the Son was 

* Age of the Fathers^ chap, vi, 



228 Constantine 

declared to be of one essence or substance with the 
Father, asserted the undiminished Divinity of the 
Son of God, through whom salvation came into 
the world. 

It is for theologians to expand upon such a 
text, but it needs no theologian to point out the 
obvious truth that any diminution of the majesty of 
the Son of God must have impaired the vitality and 
converting power of Christianity. The word, there- 
fore, was eagerly adopted by those who had been 
commissioned to draw up a creed to meet the views 
of the orthodox majority of the Council. That 
creed was at length decided upon; Hosius of Cor- 
dova announced its completion; and it was read 
aloud for the first time to the Council, apparently 
by Hermogenes, subsequently Bishop of Caesarea in 
Cappadocia. It ran as follows : 

" We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker 
of all things both visible and invisible. And in one 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the 
Father, only begotten, that is from the substance of the 
Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
God, begotten not made, being of one substance with 
the Father, by whom all things were made, both in 
heaven and earth. Who for us men and for our salvation 
came down and was made flesh, and was made man, suf- 
fered and rose on the third day, ascended into the 
heavens and will come again to judge the quick and 
the dead. And we believe in the Holy Ghost." 

Such was the text of the famous document which 
ever since has borne the title of the Nicene Creed. 
It has been added to during the centuries. It has 



The Council of Nicaea 229 

even lost one or two of its qualifying and explana- 
tory sentences. But these modifications have not 
touched its central theses, and, above all, the Ho- 
moousion remains. 

In order to make the position absolutely clear 
and preclude even the most subtle from placing an 
heretical interpretation upon the words employed, 
there was added a special anathema of the Arian 
doctrines. 

" But those who say, ' Once He was not,' and * Before 
He was begotten, He was not,' and ' He came into ex- 
istence out of what was not,' or those who profess 
that the Son of God is of a different ' person ' or ' sub- 
stance,' or that He was ' made,' or is * changeable ' or 
' mutable' — all these are anathematised by the Catholic 
Church." 

This was the formal condemnation of Arianism in 
all the Protean shapes it was capable of assum- 
ing, and the vast majority of the bishops cordially 
approved. 

But what of Arius and his friends, and what of 
the Eusebian party? Interest centred in the ac- 
tion of the latter. Would they accept the text and 
sign? Or would they hold fast to the condemned 
doctrines ? They loudly protested, of course, against 
the anathema, and the Homoousion in the creed 
itself was repugnant to their intellect. Eusebius 
of Csesarea asked for a day in which to consider 
the matter. Then he signed, and wrote a letter 
to his flock at Caesarea excusing and justifying 
his conduct, and explaining in what sense he could 



230 Constantine 

conscientiously subscribe to the Homoousion. He 
bowed to the clear verdict of the majority and to 
the passionate wish of the Emperor. Constantine 
insisted that the creed should be accepted as the 
final expression of Catholic belief, though he would 
have been just as ready to accept the creed of 
Eusebius himself. The presence or absence of the 
Homoousion was of little consequence to him. 
What he wanted was unity, and he was determ- 
ined to have it, for he was already threatening re- 
calcitrants with banishment. Eusebius of Ceesarea 
signed. He submitted, in other words, when the 
Church, meeting in Council, had spoken. The 
Palestinian and Syrian bishops who had supported 
him in the debates followed his example, comply- 
ing, we are told, with eagerness and alacrity. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicaea, and 
Maris of Chalcedon made a rather more resolute 
stand. According to one account, they consulted 
Constantia, the Emperor's sister, and she persuaded 
them to sign on the ground that they ought to 
merge their individual scruples in the will of the 
majority, lest the Emperor should throw over 
Christianity in disgust at the dissension among the 
Christians. According to another story, Constantia 
recommended them to insert an " iota " into the text 
of the creed, and thus change the Homoousion 
into the Homoiousion, to which they could sub- 
scribe without violence to their consciences. They 
could admit, that is to say, that the Son was of 
"like" substance to the Father when they could 
not admit that He was of the " same " sub- 



The Council of Nicaea 231 

stance. The story is obviously a fiction and part 
of the campaign of calumny against Eusebius of 
Nicomedia. He and his two friends signed the 
creed — not fraudulently or with mental reservations 
as the story suggests — but for precisely the same 
reason that Eusebius of Caesarea had signed it. 
It was the Emperor's wish and they were willing 
to accept the decision of the Council, but they still 
stood out against signing the anathema. Two of 
them, Eusebius and Theognis, were deprived of 
their sees and sent into exile. Whether their 
degradation and exile were due wholly to this re- 
fusal is doubtful, though as an interesting parallel 
it may be pointed out that Eusebius, Bishop of 
Vercellae, and Dionysius, Bishop of Milan, were 
exiled by the Emperor Valens in 355 because 
they refused to subscribe the condemnation of 
Athanasius at the Third Council of Milan. Arius 
and his two most faithful supporters were excom- 
municated and banished and their writings, notably 
the Thalia, were burnt with ignominy. 

The labours of the Council were not yet concluded. 
The Bishops decided that Easter should be observed 
simultaneously throughout the Church, and that the 
Judaic time should give way to the Christian. They 
then drew up what are known as the Canons of 
Nicaea. We may indicate some of the more import- 
ant, as, for example, the fifth, which provided that 
all questions of excommunication should be dis- 
cussed in provincial councils to be held twice a year; 
the fourth, that there should be no less than three 
bishops present at the consecration of every bishop, 



232 Constantine 

and the fifteenth, which prohibited absolutely the 
translation of any bishop, presbyter, or deacon from 
one city to another. Some of the canons, such as 
the twentieth, which prohibited kneeling during 
church worship on Sundays and between Easter 
and Pentecost ; and the eighteenth, which rebuked 
the presumption of deacons, have merely an an- 
tiquarian interest. The seventeenth forbade all 
usury on the part of the clergy ; the third en- 
acted that no minister of the Church, whatever 
his rank, should have with him in his house a 
woman of any kind, unless it were a mother, a sister, 
or an aunt, or some one quite beyond suspicion. 
While this canon was under discussion, one of the 
most exciting debates of the Council took place. 
The proposal was made that all the married clergy 
should be required to separate from their wives, and 
this received a considerable measure of support. 
But the opposition was led by the confessor Paph- 
nutius, whose words carried the more weight from 
the fact that he himself had been a lifelong celibate. 
He debated the subject with great warmth, main- 
taining at the top of his shrill voice that marriage was 
honourable and the bed undefiled,* and so brought 
a majority of the assembly round to his way of 
thinking. 

Then at last this historic Council was ready to 
break up. But before the bishops separated, the 
Emperor celebrated the completion of his twentieth 
year of reign by inviting them all to a great banquet. 

* rifxiov Eivai xdi rijv noirrfv ndi avrov afiiavTov rov 
ydjiiov. 



The Council of Nicaea 233 

" Not one of them," says Eusebius, * " was missing and 
the scene was of great splendour. Detachments of the 
bodyguard and other troops surrounded the entrance of 
the palace with drawn swords and through their midst the 
men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost 
apartments, in which were some of the Emperor's own 
companions at table, while others reclined on couches 
laid on either side." 

He gave gifts to each according to his rank, singling 
out a few for special favour. Among these was 
Paphnutius. Socrates says that the Emperor had 
often sent for him to the palace and kissed the vacant 
eye socket of the maimed and crippled confessor. 
Acesius the Novatian was another, though he stead- 
ily refused to abate one jot or tittle of his old con- 
victions. Constantine listened without offence, as 
the old man declared his passionate belief that those 
who after baptism had committed a sin were un- 
worthy to participate in the divine mysteries, and 
merely remarked, with sportive irony, " Plant a lad- 
der, then, Acesius, and climb up to Heaven alone ! " f 
At the closing session the Emperor delivered a 
short farewell speech, in which his theme was again 
the urgent need of unity and uniformity within the 
Christian Church. He implored the bishops to for- 
get and forgive past offences and live in peace, not 
envying one another's excellencies, but regarding 
the special merit of each as contributing to the total 
merit of all. They should leave judgment to God ; 

'^ De Vita Constant., iii., 15. 
ovpavov. 



234 Constantine 

when they quarrelled among themselves they simply 
gave their enemies an opportunity to blaspheme. 
How were they to convert the world, he asked, if 
not by the force of their example? And then he 
went on to speak plain common sense. Men do 
not become converts, he said, from their zeal for 
the truth. Some join for what they can get, some 
for preferment, some to secure charitable help, some 
for friendship's sake. " But the true lovers of true 
argument are very few : scarce, indeed, is the friend 
of truth."* Therefore, he concluded. Christians 
should be like physicians, and prescribe for each 
according to his ailments. They must not be fana- 
tics: they must be accommodating. Constantine 
could not possibly have given sounder advice to a 
body of men whose besetting sin was likely to be 
fanaticism and not laxity of doctrine. The passage, 
therefore, is not without significance. The Church 
had already begun to act upon the State ; here was 
the State palpably beginning to react upon the 
Church — in the direction of reasonableness, com- 
promise, and an accommodating temper. Then, 
after begging the bishops to remember him in their 
prayers, he dismissed them to their homes, and they 
left Nicaea,says Eusebius, glad at heart and rejoicing 
in the conviction that, in the presence of their Em- 
peror, the Church, after long division, had been 
united once more. 

Constantine evidently shared the same conviction. 
He had no doubt whatever that the Arian heresy 
was finally silenced. So we find him writing to 

* ndi dTtdvioi av r^S aX?j6sLai (ptXoi. 



The Council of Nicaea 235 

the church at Alexandria, declaring that all points 
which seemed to be open to different interpretations 
have been thoroughly discussed and settled. All 
must abide by the chose jitgee. Arius had been 
proved to be a servant of the Devil. Three hun- 
dred bishops had said it, and " that which has 
commended itself to the judgment of three hun- 
dred bishops cannot be other than the doctrine of 
God, seeing that the Holy Spirit, dweUing in the 
minds of so many honourable men, must have thor- 
oughly enlightened them as to the will of God." * 
He took for granted, therefore, that those who had 
been led away by Arius would return at once to the 
Catholic fold. The Emperor also wrote another let- 
ter, which he addressed "To the Churches," in which 
he declared that each question at issue had been dis- 
cussed until a decision was arrived at " acceptable to 
Him who is the inspector of all things," and added 
that nothing was henceforth left for dissension or 
controversy in matters of faith.f Most of the letter, 
indeed, consists of argument shewing the desirability 
of a uniform celebration of Easter, but one can see 
that the leading thought in the writer's mind is that 
the last word had at length been uttered on the car- 
dinal doctrines of the Christian Faith. The Council 
had been a brilliant success. The three hundred 
bishops announced to the Catholic Church the de- 
cisions of their *' great and holy Synod," with the 



* o yap roi? TpiaKo6iot<i kmdnoTtoii rjpedev ovSsv edriv 
srspov rj tov Beov yvoo/j-rj (Soc, i., 9). 

f (»? jujjdev ETt Ttpoi dixovoiav ij Tttdrsooi a/xqn6fir)Trj6tv 
vTtoXsiTteddai {ibidem). 



236 



Constantine 



explicit declaration that " all heresy has been cut 
out of the Church." * Arius was banished and 
Eusebius of Nicomedia with him. The triumph 
of orthodoxy seemed finally assured. 

* iTti TO Ttdcav aipsdtv kxKoit^vat (Soc, i., 9). 





CHAPTER XII 

THE MURDERS OF CRISPUS AND FAUSTA 

WE saw in the last chapter how Constantine 
presided over the dehberations of the bishops 
at Nicaea, mild, benignant, gracious, and conde- 
scending. It is a very different being whom we see 
at Rome in 326, suspicious, morose, and striking 
down in blind fury his own gallant son. The con- 
trast is startling, the cause obscure and mysterious, 
but if the secret is to be discovered at all, it is prob- 
ably to be found in the jealousies which raged in 
the Imperial House. 

We must look a little closer at the family of Constan- 
tine. The Emperor himself was in the very prime 
of middle age, just turning his fiftieth year. His 
eldest son, by his first marriage with Minervina, was 
the hope of the Empire. Crispus, as we have seen, 
had won distinction on the Rhine, and had just 
given signal proof of his capacity by his victories over 
the navy of Licinius in the Hellespont, which had 
facilitated the capture of Byzantium. He was im- 
mensely popular, and the Empire looked to him, as 
it had looked to Tiberius and Drusus three centuries 
before, as to a strong pillar of the Imperial throne. 

237 



238 Constantine 

But Crispus — if the usually accepted theory be right 
— had a bitter and implacable enemy in the Em- 
press Fausta, who regarded him as standing in the 
path of her own children, and menacing their inter- 
ests by his proved merit and abilities. The eldest 
of her sons, who bore his father's name, was not yet 
in his teens ; the second, Constantius, had been born 
in 319; the third, Constans, was a year younger. 
Her three daughters were infants or not yet born. 
These three young princes, like Caius and Lucius, — 
to pursue the Augustan parallel, — threatened rivalry 
to Crispus as they grew up, the more so, perhaps, 
because Constantine had always possessed the do- 
mestic virtues which were rare in a Roman Emperor. 
In his young days one of the court Panegyrists 
had eulogised him as a latter-day miracle — a prince 
who had never sowed any wild oats, who had act- 
ually had a taste for matrimony while still young, 
and, following the example of his father, Constan- 
tius, had displayed true piety by consenting to be- 
come a father.* Another Panegyrist praised him 
for " yielding himself to the laws of matrimony as 
soon as he ceased to be a boy," and Eusebius, more 
than once, emphasises his virtues as a husband and 
parent. Constantine, we suspect, was a man easily 
swayed by a strong-minded woman, ambitious to 
oust a step-son from his father's favour. 

There was yet another great lady of the reigning 
house whose influence upon the Emperor has to be 
taken into account. This was his mother, Helena, 

^ Novum jam turn iniraculum juvenis uxoriiis (Pan. Vet., vi., 
c. 2 et 4). 




CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND HIS MOTHER, ST. 
HELENA, HOLY, EQUAL TO THE APOSTLES." 

FROM A PICTURE DISCOVERED 1845, IN AN OLD CHURCH OF MESEMBRIA.) 
FROM GROSVENOR'S " CONSTANTINOPLE." 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 239 

now nearly eighty years of age, but still vigorous 
and active enough in mind and body to undergo 
the fatigues of a journey to Jerusalem. Eusebius * 
dwells upon the estimation in which Constantine 
held his mother, to whom full Imperial honours were 
paid. Golden coins were struck in her honour, bear- 
ing her efifigy and the inscription, " Flavia Helena 
Augusta." She amassed great riches, and although 
it is impossible directly to trace her influence upon 
State affairs, there is reason to believe that Helena, 
who owed her conversion, according to Eusebius, to 
the persuasion of her son, was a woman of pro- 
nounced and decided character and a great power at 
court. 

There was also Constantine's half-sister, Constan- 
tia, the widow of Licinius, whose intercession with 
her brother had secured for her defeated husband 
an ill-kept promise of pardon and protection. Con- 
stantia was to exhibit even more striking proof of 
her influence a little later on by her skilful advocacy 
of the cause of Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
and her share in procuring the banishment of Athan- 
asius. These great ladies move in shadowy outline 
across the stage ; we can scarcely distinguish their 
features or their form ; but we think we can see their 
handiwork most unmistakably in the appalling trage- 
dies which we now have to narrate. 

In 326 Constantine went to Rome to celebrate the 
completion of his twentieth year of reign. Diocle- 
tian had done the same — the only occasion upon 
which that great Emperor had ever set foot in the 

* De Vita Const., iii., p, 47. 



240 Constantine 

ancient capital, and even then he made all possible 
haste to quit it. But whereas Diocletian had travelled 
thither with the intention of abdicating immediately 
afterwards, Constantine had no such act of self-abne- 
gation in his mind. Yet he was in no festival mood. 
Not long after his arrival, there took place the ancient 
ceremony known as the Procession of the Knights, 
who rode to the Capitol to pay their vows to Jupiter 
— the religious ceremony which attended the annual 
revision of the equestrian lists. Constantine con- 
temptuously stayed within his palace on the day and 
disdained to watch the Knights ride by. His absence 
was made the pretext for some street rioting, which, 
we can hardly doubt, had been carefully engineered 
beforehand. Rome, still overwhelmingly pagan in 
its sympathies, had doubtless heard with bitter an- 
ger how the Emperor, the head of the old national 
religion, had been taking part in a General Council 
of the Christian Church, had admitted bishops and 
confessors to the intimacy of his table, and had 
boldly declared himself the champion of Christianity. 
Constantine's pointed refusal to countenance a time- 
honoured ceremony which, while itself of no extra- 
ordinary importance, might yet be taken as typical 
of the ancient order of things, would easily serve as 
pretext for a hostile demonstration. Demonstrations 
in Rome no longer menaced the throne now that the 
barracks of the Praetorians were empty, but the in- 
cident would serve to confirm the suspicions already 
clouding the mind of the Emperor. 

We can read those suspicions most plainly in an 
edict which he had issued at Nicomedia a few months 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 241 

before. It was addressed to his subjects in every 
province (Ad Universos Provinciates), and in it the 
Emperor invited all and sundry to come forward 
boldly and keep him well informed of any secret 
plotting of which they happened to be cognisant. 
No matter how lofty the station of the conspirator 
might be, whether governor of a province, ofificer of 
the army, or even friend and associate of the Em- 
peror, if any one discovered anything he was to tell 
what he knew, and the Emperor would not be lack- 
ing either in gratitude or substantial reward. " Let 
him come without fear," ran the edict, " and let him 
address himself to me ! I will Hsten to all : I will 
myself conduct the investigation* : and if the accuser 
does but prove his charge, I will vindicate my wrongs. 
Only let him speak boldly and be sure of his case ! " 
The hand which wrote this was the hand which 
had flung unread into the brazier at Nicsea the in- 
criminating petitions of the bishops. What had taken 
place in the interval that he should issue an edict 
worthy of a Domitian ? The authorities give not the 
slightest hint. Was there some great conspiracy 
afoot, in the meshes of which Constantine feared to 
become entangled, but so cunningly contrived that 
the Em.peror could only be sensible of its existence, 
without being able to lay hands on the intriguers ? 
Was paganism restless in the East as we have seen it 
restless in Rome, at the triumph of its once-despised 
and always detested rival ? We do not know. Quite 
pQssibly it was, though with the downfall of Licinius 

* Intrepidus et securus accedat : interpellet me. Ipse audiam 
omnia, ipse cognoscam. 
16 



242 Constantine 

its prospects seemed hopeless. Unless, indeed, there 
was some member of the Imperial Family upon 
whom paganism rested its hopes and to whom it 
looked as its future deliverer ! Was Crispus such a 
prince ? Again we do not know. There is not a 
scrap of evidence to bear out a theory which has 
only been framed as a possible explanation of the 
dark mystery of his fate. 

Eutropius, whose character sketches, for all their 
brevity, usually tally well with known facts, calls 
Crispus a prince of the highest merit {viriim egre- 
giuni). Why then did Constantine turn against him ? 
We may, perhaps, see the first sign of the changed 
relationship in the fact that in 323 the Caesarship of 
Gaul was taken from Crispus and given to the young 
Constantius, then a child of seven. So far as is 
known, no compensating title or command was of- 
fered in exchange, which looks as though Constantine 
was disinclined to trust his eldest son any longer 
and preferred to keep him in surveillance by his side. 
The father may have been jealous of the prowess 
and popularity of the son ; the son may have been 
ambitious, as Constantine himself had been in his 
young days, and have deemed that his services 
merited elevation to the rank of an Augustus. Ac- 
cording to the system of Diocletian, twenty years of 
sovereignty were held to be long enough for the 
welfare alike of sovereign and of the Empire. Con- 
stantine's term was running out. The system was 
not yet formally abandoned ; is it unreasonable to 
suppose that Crispus considered he had claims to 
rule, or that Constantine, resolved to keep what he 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 243 

had won, became estranged from one whom he knew 
he was not treating with generosity or with justice? 
As we have said, there is no evidence of any 
disloyalty on the part of Crispus, but he may have 
let incautious expressions fall from his lips which 
would be carried to the ears of his father, and he 
may have chafed to see himself supplanted by the 
young princes, his half-brothers. The boy Caesar, 
Constantius, was named consul with his father for 
the festival year 326, a distinction which Crispus 
may justly have thought to belong by right to him- 
self, and he may have seen in this another proof of 
the ill-will of the Empress Fausta, and of her influ- 
ence over the Emperor. Possibly Crispus was 
goaded by anger into some indiscreet action, which 
confirmed Constantine's suspicions ; possibly even 
he committed some act of disobedience which 
gave Constantine the excuse he sought for. At 
any rate, in the July or August of 326, Crispus 
was arrested in Rome and summarily banished to 
Pola in Istria. Tidings of his death soon followed. 
Whatever the manner of his death, whether he 
was beheaded or was poisoned or committed 
suicide, all the authorities agree that he came to a 
violent end and that the responsibility rests upon 
his father, Constantine. Nor was Crispus the only 
victim. With him fell Licinianus, the son of Licin- 
ius and Constantia. He was a promising lad {com- 
inod(E indolis, says Eutropius) who could not have 
been more than twelve years of age and could not, 
therefore, have been guilty of any crime or intrigue 
against his uncle. 



244 Constantine 

One cannot pass by altogether without mention 
the story of Zosimus that the reason of Fausta's 
implacable hatred of Crispus was not ambition 
for her own children, but a still more ungovernable 
and much less pardonable passion. Zosimus de- 
clares that Fausta was enamoured of her step-son, 
who rejected her overtures, and so fell a victim, 
like another Hippolytus, to the vengeance of this 
Roman Phaedra. Most modern historians have re- 
jected the story, as emanating from the lively imagina- 
tion of a Greek at a loss for a plausible explanation 
of a mysterious crime, and we may, with tolerable cer- 
tainty, acquit Fausta of so disgraceful a passion. 
If, as we suppose, she was the untiring enemy of 
Crispus, it is at once more charitable and more 
probable to suppose that the motive of her hate 
was her fierce ambition for her own sons. For the 
moment the Empress conquered. But her triumph 
did not last long. Eutropius tells us that soon 
afterwards — mox — a vague word equally applicable 
to a period of days, weeks, or even months — Fausta 
herself was put to death by Constantine. What 
was her offence? Philostorgius* declares that she 
was discovered in an intrigue with a groom of the 
stables — an amour worthy of Messalina herself. But 
the story stands suspect, especially when taken in 
conjunction with the legend of her passion for Cris- 
pus. The one seems invented to bolster up the 
other and add to its verisimilitude. The truth is 
that nothing is known for certain ; and the whole 
episode was probably kept as a profound palace 

*ii., c. 4. 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 245 

secret. One circumstance, however, mentioned by 
Aurelius Victor and by Zosimus, merits attention. 
Both declare that the Empress-mother, Helena, 
was furious at the murder of Crispus. Zosimus 
says that she was greatly distressed at her grand- 
son's suffering, and could hardly contain herself at 
the news of his death {aax^'^^'^ ''^W (xvaipeffiv rov 
riov (pspovffT^?). Aurelius Victor adds that the 
aged Empress bitterly reproached her son for his 
cruelty {Cum eum mater Helena nimio dolore nepotis 
increparet). Evidently, Helena favoured Crispus, 
the son of Minervina — who, like herself, had been 
forced by the exigencies of State to quit her hus- 
band's house, and make room for an Emperor's 
daughter, — in preference to the children of Constan- 
tine and Fausta; evidently therefore, Helena and 
Fausta were rival influences at court, each striving 
for ascendency. If Crispus's death betokened that 
Fausta had gained the upper hand, the death of 
Fausta shewed that Helena had succeeded in turning 
the tables. When Helena violently reproached her 
son for slaying Crispus, we may be sure that she was 
aiming her shafts through Constantine at Fausta, and 
that when she succeeded in rousing the Emperor 
to remorse she succeeded also in kindling his re- 
sentment against his wife. It is said that Fausta 
was suffocated in a hot bath, but every detail is 
open to challenge. Eusebius passes over the entire 
episode without a word. He is not only silent as 
to the death of Fausta but also as to the death of 
Crispus. The courtly Bishop refuses to turn even 
a single look towards the crime-stained Palatine, on 



246 Constantine 

whose gates some lampoon writer had set a paper 
with the bitter epigram : 

Saturni aurea scecula quis requiret? 
Sunt hcec gemmea, sed Neroniana. 

( " Who will care to seek the golden age of Saturn ? 
Ours is the age of jewels, but jewels of Nero's 
setting.") If Constantine, like Saturn, had devoured 
his children and had lapsed for the moment into a 
savage tyrant of Nero's pattern, it was not for 
Eusebius to judge him. He was writing for edifi- 
cation. Constantine had averred his willingness 
to cast his cloak over a sinning bishop lest scandal 
should arise ; ought not an ecclesiastical historian 
to cast the cloak of charitable silence over the 
crimes of a most Christian Emperor? When, there- 
fore, Eusebius describes* how, after the death of 
Licinius, men cast aside all their former fears, and 
dared to raise their long-downcast eyes and look 
up with a smile on their faces and brightness in 
their glance ; how they honoured the Emperor in 
all the beauty of victory and " his most orderly 
sons and Heaven-beloved Caesars " ; and how they 
straightway forgot their old troubles and all un- 
righteousness, and gave themselves up to an en- 
joyment of their present good things and their 
hope of others to come ; it is a healthy corrective 
to recall the murderous outbreak of ungovernable 
wrath which made Rome shudder as it listened to 
the whispered tale of what was taking place in the 
recesses of the Palatine. The entire subject is one 
^De Vita Const. , ii,, p. 19. 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 247 

on which it is as fascinating as it is easy to speculate. 
On the whole, it seems most likely that Constan- 
tine's fears had been worked upon to such an extent 
that he believed himself surrounded by traitors in 
his own family, that the Empress Fausta had been 
the leading spirit in the plot to ruin Crispus, and 
that when the Emperor discovered his mistake he 
turned in fury upon his wife. It may be, as Eu- 
tropius suggests, that his mental balance had been 
upset by his extraordinary success, that his pro- 
sperity and the adulation of the world had been too 
much for him.* That is a charitable theory which, in 
default of a better, we, too, may as well adopt. 

We need not doubt the sincerity of his repent- 
ance. Zosimus depicts the Emperor remorsefully 
begging the priests of the old religion to purify 
him from his crime, and says that when they sternly 
refused, Constantine turned to accept the sooth- 
ing offices of a wandering Egyptian from Spain. 
Another account, current among pagans, was that 
he applied for comfort to the philosopher, Sopater, 
who would have nothing to say to so heinous a 
sinner, and that he then fell in with certain Christ- 
ian bishops, who promised him full forgiveness at 
the price of repentance and baptism. The motive 
of these legends is as obvious as their falsity. The 
pagans, in defiance of chronology, sought to explain 
the Emperor's conversion to Christianity as a result 
of the murders that lay heavy upon his soul, murders 
so revolting as only to admit of pardon in the eyes 

'^Verum insolentia rerunt secundarum aliquantum Constantinus 
ex ilia favor abili animi docilitate mutavit (x., p. 6). 



248 Constantine 

of Christians. Among the late legends of the By- 
zantine writer Codinus, we find the story that Con- 
stantine raised to the memory of Crispus a golden 
statue, which bore the inscription, " To the son 
whom I unjustly condemned," and that he fasted 
and refused the comforts of life for forty days. Of 
even greater interest is the legend that Constan- 
tine was baptised by Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome, 
and, in gratitude for the promise of pardon, be- 
stowed upon the see of Rome the damnosa hcsredi- 
tas of the Temporal Power. 

There is no necessity to discuss at length the 
once famous, but now simply notorious, Donation 
of Constantine. The legend is so grotesque that 
one wonders it ever imposed on the credulity even 
of the most ignorant. For it represented Constan- 
tine as being smitten with leprosy for having perse- 
cuted the Church and for having driven the good 
Pope Sylvester into exile. The Emperor consulted 
soothsayers, priests, and physicians in turn, and was 
at last informed that his only chance of cure lay in 
bathing in the blood of little children. Forthwith, a 
number of children were collected for this dreadful 
purpose, but their cries awoke the pity of Constan- 
tine and he gave them respite. Then, as he slept, 
Peter and Paul appeared to him in a dream and 
bade him let the children go free, recall Sylvester 
from exile, and submit at his hands to the rite of 
baptism. This was done ; the baptism was admin- 
istered ; Constantine was cured of the leprosy, and 
in return he made over to Sylvester and his succes- 
sors full temporal dominion over the city of Rome, 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 249 

the greater part of Italy, and certain other provinces. 
Such is the story, which was long accepted without 
demur and confidently appealed to as the origin of 
the Temporal Power. It is now universally ad- 
mitted that the whole legend is a fraud and the 
letter of Constantine to Sylvester announcing the 
Donation a forgery of the eighth century. Con- 
stantine never persecuted the Church; he never had 
leprosy ; he never contemplated bathing in infants' 
blood ; he did not receive the rite of baptism until 
he was on his death-bed, and he did not hand over 
to the Pope the fee simple and title deeds of Rome 
and Italy. The Donation of Constantine belongs to 
the museum of historical forgeries.* 

But if the repentance of Constantine did not take 
the form of stupendous endowments for the Bishop 
of Rome, we may be tolerably sure that it did man- 
ifest itself in the increased zeal of the Emperor for 
the building of churches, and especially in his mu- 
nificence to the Christians of Rome. It is tempting, 
also, to connect with Constantine's remorse and his 
mother's sorrow for the murder of her grandson the 
pilgrimage of Helena to Palestine and Jerusalem, 
which followed almost immediately. Around that 



* We may quote the most striking sentence in the document : 
Ecce tarn palatium nostrum quam urbem Romam, et omnes totius 
Italice et occidetttaliumregionum provincias, loca et civitates,prcefato 
beatissimo Poittijici nostra Sylvesfro, universali papce, concedinius 
atque relinquimus. The forger forged boldly, and then went on to 
add that Constantine withdrew to Constantinople, because it was not 
just that an earthly monarch (terrenus imperator) should exercise 
sovereignty in the city where the Head of the Christian religion had 
been installed by the Lord of Heaven (ab imperatore ccelesii). 



250 Constantine 

visit there clustered many legends which, as time 
went on, multiplied amazingly. Of these the most 
famous is that which is known as the Invention of the 
Cross. This, in its fullest form many centuries after 
the event, ran something as follows : When Hel- 
ena reached Jerusalem she asked to be shown the 
Holy Sepulchre. But no one could tell her where 
the exact spot was. Buildings had been erected 
upon Mount Calvary and the adjoining land ; a 
temple of Venus was still standing near the place 
where the body of Christ must have been laid. 
Helena instituted a careful search, and the authority 
of the Emperor's mother would be warrant sufficient 
for the disturbance of the occupiers. At first their 
toil met with no success. Then a very clever Jew 
came forward with a story that he had heard of an 
old tradition that the site of the Sepulchre lay 
in such and such a spot ; the direction of the exca- 
vation was entrusted to him ; and the searchers were 
soon rewarded by finding not only the cave where 
Christ had lain, but also three crosses. These, it 
was at once determined, must have been the crosses 
on which Christ and the two malefactors had suf- 
fered. But which had borne the Saviour? There 
was nothing to show, but so sacred an object was 
sure to be invested with wonder-working powers, 
and the test was, therefore, easy. So they brought 
to the spot a dying woman — according to one ver- 
sion, she was already dead — and touched her with 
the wood of the three crosses. At contact with the 
first two no change was visible ; but the touch of the 
third recalled her to sensibility and perfect health, 




ST. HELENA'S VISION OF THE CROSS. 

BY CALIARI (pAOLO VERONESE). 
NATIONAL GALLERY. LONDON. 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 251 

and the true Cross stood at once revealed to the 
adoring worship of all believers. In the wood were 
two nails. Helena had them carefully sent to Con- 
stantine, and he, we are told, had one of them in- 
serted — as something far more precious than rubies 
— in the Imperial crown, while from the other he 
fashioned a bit for his horse. 

Such is the legend in its most complete form. It 
directly associates the finding of the Cross with 
Helena's visit to Jerusalem, and attributes also to 
her the magnificent church which was raised in the 
latter part of the reign of Constantine on the site 
of the Holy Sepulchre. But it must also be added 
that the first historical mention of the " Invention " 
is seventy years after the discovery was supposed 
to have taken place. Eusebius, in describing Hel- 
ena's pilgrimage,* knows nothing of the finding of 
the Cross, and, while he speaks of the discovery 
of the Sepulchre, he does not associate it with Hel- 
ena, though he attributes to her piety the new 
church at Bethlehem. It was Constantine, according 
to Eusebius, who built the church on the site of the 
Holy Sepulchre, and beautified the cave of Bethle- 
hem and the site of the Ascension, but of the finding 
of the Cross there is not a word — a significant silence, 
which can only mean that the legend was not yet 
current when Eusebius composed his " Life " of 
Constantine. What cannot well be doubted is that 
the site of the Sepulchre was discovered and cleared 
in Constantine's reign. The Emperor built upon 
it one of his finest churches, but popular tradition, 

*Z>f Vita Const., iii., p. 44, seq. 



252 Constantine 

with a sure eye for the romantic and the extra- 
ordinary, preferred to attribute the origin of the 
noblest shrine in Palestine to the pious enthusiasm 
of the aged Helena. Her pilgrimage over, Helena 
died not long afterwards, and was buried by Con- 
stantine with full military honours " in the royal 
tombs of the reigning city." The phrase points 
clearly to Constantinople as the place of burial, 
though Rome also claims this honour. 

History is silent as to the events of the next few 
years. But as the Empire had been free both from 
civil and foreign war since the downfall of Licinius, 
we may accept the general statement of Eusebius 
" that all men enjoyed quiet and untroubled days." * 
Peace was always the greatest interest of the Roman 
Empire, but it was rarely of long continuance, and 
in 330 and the two following years we find the Em- 
peror campaigning in person against the Goths and 
the Sarmatae. The account of these wars in the 
authorities of the period is so confused and contra- 
dictory that it is impossible to obtain a connected 
narrative. 

It was the old familiar story over again. The 
barbarians had come raiding over the borders. 
There seems to have been fighting along the entire 
north-eastern frontier, from the great bend of the 
Danube to the Tauric Chersonese. Constantine and 
the legions drove the enemy back, won victories 
chequered by minor reverses, and finally the Em- 
peror was glad enough in 332 to come to terms with 
the chiefs of the Gothic nation. Mention is made 



* DeVita Const. ^ iv., c. 14. 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 253 

of a handsome subsidy paid by Constantine to 
the Gothic kings, which certainly does not suggest 
the overwhelming triumph of the Roman arms of 
which Eusebius speaks when he says that the Em- 
peror was the first to bring them under the yoke 
and taught them to acknowledge the Romans as their 
masters.* As for the Sarmatse, Eusebius declares f 
that they had been obliged to arm their slaves for 
their assistance against the attacks of the Scythians, 
that the slaves had revolted against their old mas- 
ters, and that in despair the Sarmatae turned to 
Constantine and asked for shelter on Roman terri- 
tory. Some of them, says Eusebius, were received 
into the legions ; others were distributed as farmers 
and tillers of the soil throughout the frontier pro- 
vinces ; and all, he declares, confessed that their 
misfortunes had really been a blessing in disguise, 
inasmuch as it had enabled them to exchange their 
old state of barbarian savagery for the Roman free- 
dom. Probably we shall not be far wrong if we 
place a different interpretation on the words of Euse- 
bius, and see in the transference of these Sarmatians 
to the Roman provinces a confession of weakness 
on the part of Constantine. They were not captives 
of war. They were rather invited over the borders 
to keep their kinsmen out, and the Roman Emperor 
paid for his new subjects in the shape of a handsome 
subsidy. There can be no other meaning of the curi- 
ous words of Eutropius that Constantine left behind 
him a tremendous reputation for generosity with 



* De Vita Const., iy. , p. 5, 
\ Ibid., iv., p. 6, 



254 Constantine 

the barbaric nations {Itige7tteinque apud barbaras 
gentes memorice gratiain collocavit. — x., 7). Money- 
was not so plentiful in Constantine's exchequer that 
he gave subsidies for nothing. The suggestion is 
not that he suffered defeat and bought off hostility; 
it is rather that he thought it worth while, after 
vindicating the honour of the Roman arms, to pay 
for the friendship of the vanquished. 

On the Eastern frontier peace had remained un- 
broken throughout Constantine's long reign. Persia 
had been so shattered by Galerius that King Narses 
made no attempt to renounce the humiliating treaty 
which had been imposed upon him. His son, Hor- 
misdas, had likewise acquiesced in the loss of Ar- 
menia and what were known as the five provinces 
beyond the Tigris, and when Hormisdas died, leav- 
ing a son still unborn, there was a long regency dur- 
ing which no aggressive movement was made from 
the Persian side. However, this son, Sapor, proved 
to be a high-spirited, patriotic, and capable monarch, 
who was determined to uphold and assert the rights 
of Persia. It is not known how the peaceful relation- 
ship, which had so long subsisted between his coun- 
try and Rome, came to be broken. According to 
Eusebius,* Sapor sent an embassy to the Emperor, 
which was received with the utmost cordiality, and 
Constantine, we are told, took the opportunity of 
sending back by these same envoys a letter com- 
mending to his favourable regard the Christians of 
Persia. The document contained a very tedious 
and involved confession of faith by the Emperor, 

"^ De Vita Cons I. .^ iv,, p. 8, 



The Murders of Crispus and Fausta 255 

who affirmed his devotion to God and declared his 
horror at the sight and smell of the blood of sac- 
rifice. " The God I serve," said Constantine, " de- 
mands from His worshippers nothing but a pure 
mind and a spirit undefiled." Then he reminded 
Sapor how the persecutors of the Church had been 
destroyed root and branch, and how one of them, 
Valerian, had graced the triumph of a Persian king. 
He, therefore, confidently committed the Christians, 
who " honoured by their presence some of the fairest 
regions of Persia," to the generosity and protection 
of their sovereign. 

This remarkable letter suggests that Sapor had 
been alarmed at the growth of Christianity in his 
dominions, and by no means looked upon his Christ- 
ian subjects as lending lustre and distinction to his 
realm. Whether he replied to what he may well 
have regarded as a veiled threat, we do not know, 
but in 335 we hear of what Eusebius calls •' an insur- 
rection of barbarians in the East," * and Constan- 
tine prepared for war against Persia. In other words, 
Sapor had fomented an insurrection in the provinces 
beyond the Tigris and was claiming his lost heritage. 
Constantine laid his military plans before the bishops 
of his court. These declared their intention of accom- 
panying him into the field, to the great delight, we 
are assured, of the Emperor, who ordered a tent to 
be made for his service in the shape of a church, 
while Sapor, in alarm, sent envoys to sue for a peace 
which the most peaceful-minded of kings {iiprjviKco- 
raro? 0aGikhv<i) was only too ready to grant. Such 

* De Vita Const., iv., p. 56. 



256 



Constantine 



is the story of Eusebius, but it is evident that the 
Eastern legions had been carefully mobilised, and, 
whether such a peace was granted or not, the death 
of Constantine in 337 was the signal for a renewal of 
the old conflict between the two great empires of 
the world, and for a war which lasted without inter- 
mission through the reigns of Constantine's sons 
and that of his nephew Juhan. 




CHAPTER XIII 

THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE 

WE come now to the greatest political achieve- 
ment of Constantine's reign — the foundation 
of a new Rome. Let us ask at the outset what 
led him to take a step so decisive as the trans- 
ference of the world's metropolis from the Italian 
peninsula to the borders of Europe and Asia. The 
assignation of merely personal motives will not suf- 
fice. We are told by Zosimus that Rome was dis- 
tasteful to Constantine, because it reminded him of 
the son and the wife who had fallen victims to his 
savage resentment. He was uneasy in the palace on 
the Palatine, whose very stones suggested murder 
and sudden death, and whose walls were cognisant 
of unnumbered treasons. What Zosimus says may 
very well be true. Constantine's conscience was 
likely to give him less peace in Rome than elsewhere. 
But the personal wishes of even the greatest men 
cannot bind the generations which come after them. 
There have been cities founded by the caprice of 
royal tyrants which have flourished for a season and 
then vanished. Seleucia is perhaps the most striking 
example, and scarcely a mound remains to mark its 

257 



-J< 



Constantine 



site. But most of the historic cities of the world owe 
their greatness and their permanence not to the 
whims of royal founders, but to geographical and 
strategic position. Rome was not uncrowned by 
Constantine because he could not forget within its 
walls the crimes which had stained his hands with 
blood. 

It is also to be remembered that others had already 
set the example of despoiling of her dignities the 
ancient Queen of the Nations. We have seen how in 
the western half of the Empire great Imperial cities 
had been rising within easy reach of the frontiers. In 
far-off Britain London might be the most opulent 
city, but York was the chief residence of the Caesar 
of the West when he visited the island. In Gaul 
Treves had outstripped Lyons in dignity and wealth, 
and was now the centre of military and administrative 
power. Even in Italy Milan had grown at the ex- 
pense of Rome; it was nearer to the frontier and, 
therefore, nearer to the armies. Rome lay out of the 
way. Diocletian, again, had favoured Nicomedia in 
Bithynia. In other words, Rome was ceasing to be 
the one centre of gravity of the ancient world, or, to 
express the same truth in another form, the Roman 
world was ceasing to be one. Diocletian had prac- 
tically acknowledged this when he founded his sys- 
tem of August! and Caesars. With the subdivision 
of administrative and executive power there natur- 
ally ceases to be one supreme metropolis. It would 
be a mistake to suppose that Constantine, in founding 
a new Rome, deliberately hastened the rapid tendency 
towards separation. The very name of " New Rome" 



THE GOLDEN HORN. 




THE MARMORA. 



CHART OF THE EASTERN SECTION OF MEDI/eVAL CONSTANTINOPLE. 

FROM GROSVENOR'S "CONSTANTINOPLE." 



The Foundation of Constantinople 259 

which he gave his city indicates his belief that he 
was merely moving Rome from the Tiber to the 
Bosphorus — merely changing to a more convenient 
site. But the fact that this name dropped out of use 
almost at once, and that the city was called after 
him, not in Latin but in Greek, shews how strongly 
the current was flowing towards political division. 

But what attracted Constantine towards Byzan- 
tium ? Precisely, of course, those advantages of 
situation which have attracted modern statesmen. 
Every one knows the story of how, after the Peace of 
Tilsit, the Tsar Alexander constantly pressed Napo- 
leon to allow him to take Constantinople. Napoleon 
at length told his secretary, M. de Meneval, to bring 
him the largest map of Europe which he could pro- 
cure, and, after poring over it for some time,he looked 
up and exclaimed, " Constantinople ! Never ! It is 
the Empire of the world." Was Napoleon right? 
The publicists of to-day return different answers. 
The Mediterranean is not the all-important sea it 
once was, and the strategical importance of Constan- 
tinople has been greatly modified by the Suez Canal 
and the British occupation of Egypt. But if Napo- 
leon's exclamation seems rather theatrical to us, it 
would not have seemed so to Constantine, whose 
world was so much smaller than ours and presented 
such different strategical problems calling for solution. 
Constantine had won the world when he defeated 
Licinius and captured Byzantium : he determined to 
keep it where he had won it. 

It is said by some of the late historians that he was 
long in coming to a, degision, and that he carefully 



26o Constantine 

weighed the rival claims of other cities. There was 
his birthplace, Naissus, in Pannonia, though we can- 
not suppose that Constantine seriously thought of 
making this his metropolis. There was Sardica on the 
Danube, the modern Belgrade and capital of Servia, 
a city well adapted by its position for playing an im- 
portant role in history, and conveniently near the 
most dangerous frontier of the Empire. " My Rome 
is at Sardica," Constantine was fond of declaring at 
one period of his career, according to a tradition 
which was perpetuated by the Byzantine historians. 
Another possible choice was Nicomedia, which had 
commended itself to Diocletian, and, finally, there 
was Salonica, which even now has only to fall into 
capable hands to become one of the most prosper- 
ous cities of eastern Europe. 

According to Zosimus, even when Constantine 
had determined to found his new city at the point 
where Europe and Asia are divided by the narrow 
straits, he selected first the Asiatic side. The his- 
torian says that he actually began to build and that 
the foundations of the abandoned city were still to 
be seen in his day between Troy and Pergamum. 
But the story is more than doubtful. Legend has 
naturally been busy with the circumstances attend- 
ing the Emperor's final choice of Byzantium. Was 
it inspired, as some say, by the flight of an eagle 
from Chrysopolis towards Byzantium? Or, while 
Constantine slept in Byzantium, did the aged tutelar 
genius of the place appear to him in a dream and 
then become transformed into a beautiful maiden, 
to whom he offered the insignia of royalty ? Inter- 



The Foundation of Constantinople 261 

esting as these legends are, we need seek no further 
explanation of Constantine's choice than his own 
good judgment and experience. He was fully aware 
of the extraordinary natural strength of Byzantium, 
for his armies had found great difficulty in taking it 
by assault ; the supreme beauty of the site and its 
many other quahfications for becoming a great capi- 
tal were manifest to his eyes every time he ap- 
proached it. Byzantium had long been one of the 
most renowned cities of antiquity. Even in the re- 
motest times the imagination of the Greeks had 
been powerfully affected by the stormy Euxine that 
lay in what was to them the far north-east, guarding 
the Golden Fleece and the Apples of the Hesperidae, 
a wild region of big rivers, savage lands, and boister- 
ous seas. Daring seamen of Megara, in the seventh 
century B.C., had effected a landing at the mouth of 
the Bosphorus, where lo had fled across from Europe 
to Asia, turning their galleys up the smooth estuary 
that still bears its ancient name of the Golden Horn. 
Apollo had told them to fix their habitation " over 
against the city of the blind," and this they had 
rightly judged could be no other than Chalcedon, 
for men must needs have been blind to choose the 
Asiatic in preference to the European shore. 

The little colony founded by Byzas, the Megarian, 
had prospered marvellously, though it had experi- 
enced to the full all the vicissitudes of fortune. It 
had fallen before the Persian King Darius ; it had 
been wrested from him after a long siege by Pau- 
sanias, the hero of Plataea, when the Greeks rolled 
back the tide of invasion. In turn the subject and 



262 Constantine 

successful rival of Athens, Byzantium gained new 
glory by withstanding for two years the assaults of 
Philip of Macedon. Thanks to the eloquence of De- 
mosthenes, Athens sent help in the shape of ships 
and men, and, in commemoration of a night attack 
of the Macedonians successfully foiled by the oppor- 
tune rising of the moon, Byzantium placed upon 
her coins the crescent and the star, which for four 
centuries and a half have been the familiar symbols 
of Turkish sovereignty. Byzantium grew rich on 
commerce. It was the port of call at which every 
ship entering or leaving the Bosphorus was bound to 
touch ; no craft sailed the Euxine without paying 
dues to the city at its mouth. Polybius, in a very 
interesting passage,* points out how Byzantium oc- 
cupied " the most secure and advantageous position 
of any city in our quarter of the world, as far as the 
sea is concerned." Then he continues : 

" The Pontus, therefore, being rich in what the rest of 
the world requires to support life, the Byzantines are 
absolute masters in this respect. For the first necessaries 
of existence, cattle and slaves, are admittedly supplied 
by the region of the Pontus in better quality and greater 
profusion than elsewhere. In the matter of luxuries, 
they supply us with honey, wax, and salt fish, while they 
take our superfluous olive oil and wines." 

It was Byzantium, therefore, which kept open the 
straits, and Polybius speaks of the city as a common 
benefactor of the Greeks. When the Romans began 
to appear on the scene as a world-power, Byzantium 

*Bk. IV., c. 38, seq. 



The Foundation of Constantinople 263 

made terms with the Senate. It well suited the 
Roman policy to have a powerful ally on the Bos- 
phorus, strong in the ships in which Rome was 
usually deficient. Asa libera et feeder ata civitas, By- 
zantium enjoyed a more or less prosperous history 
until the days of Vespasian, who stripped it of its 
privileges. These were restored, but a shattering 
blow overtook the city at the close of the second 
century, when Septimus Severus took it by storm. 
Angry at its long resistance, Severus levelled its 
fortifications to the ground, — a work of endless toil, 
for the stones and blocks had been so clamped to- 
gether that the walls were one solid mass. How- 
ever, before he died, he repented him of the destruc- 
tion which he had wrought and gave orders for the 
walls to be built anew. It was the Byzantium as 
rebuilt by Severus that Constantine determined to 
refound on a far more splendid scale. 

No subsequent historian has improved upon the 
glowing passage in which Gibbon summarises the 
incomparable advantages of its site, which appears, 
as he well says, to have been " founded by Nature 
for the centre and capital of a great monarchy," 
We may quote the passage in full from his seven- 
teenth chapter : 

" Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude — prac- 
tically the same, it may be noted, as that of Rome, Mad- 
rid, and New York — the imperial city commanded from 
her seven hills the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; 
the climate was healthy and temperate; the soil fertile; 
the harbour secure and capacious; and the approach 
on the side of the continent was of small extent and easy 



264 Constantine 

of defence. The Bosphorus and Hellespont may be con- 
sidered as the two gates of Constantinople; and the prince 
who procured those important passages could always 
shut them against a naval enemy and open them to the 
fleets of commerce. The preservation of the Eastern 
provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy 
of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who, in 
the preceding age, had poured down their armaments 
into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from 
the exercise of piracy and despaired of facing this insur- 
mountable barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont 
and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed, within 
their spacious inclosure, every production which could 
supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous 
inhabitants. The seacoasts of Thrace and Bithynia, 
which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, 
still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens and 
plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been re- 
nowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite 
fish, that are taken in their stated seasons without skill 
and almost without labour. But, when the passages of 
the Straits were thrown open for trade, they alternately 
admitted the natural and artificial riches of the North 
and South, of the Euxine and the Mediterranean. What- 
ever rude commodities were collected in the forests of 
Germany and Scythia, as far as the sources of the Tanais 
and the Borysthenes, whatever was manufactured by 
the skill of Europe and of Asia, the corn of Egypt and the 
gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the 
varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which, for 
many ages, attracted the commerce of the ancient world." 

From a strategical point of view, it was of inestim- 
able advantage that the capital and military centre 



The Foundation of Constantinople 265 

of the Empire should be within striking distance of 
the route taken by the nomad populations of the 
East as they pressed towards the West, at the head 
of the Euxine. The Scythians, the Goths, and the 
Sarmatae had all crossed that great region ; the Huns 
were to cross it in the coming centuries. Placed on 
shipboard at Constantinople, the legions of the Em- 
pire could be swiftly conveyed into the Euxine, and 
could penetrate up the Danube, Tanais, or Borys- 
thenes to confront the invaders where the danger 
threatened most. 

The story of how Constantine marked out the 
boundaries of his new capital is well known. Not 
content with the narrow limits of the ancient city — 
which included little more than the district now 
known as Seraglio Point — Constantine crossed the 
old boundary, spear in hand, and walked with 
his attendants along the shores of the Propon- 
tis, tracing the line as he went. His companions 
expressed astonishment that he continued so far 
afield, and respectfully drew the Emperor's attention 
to the enormous circuit which the walls would have 
to enclose. Constantine rebuked them. " I shall 
still advance," he said, " until He, the invisible guide 
who marches before me, thinks it right to stop." 
The legend is first found in Philostorgius, and it is 
not of much importance. But Constantine, as usual, 
took care to foster the belief that his will was God's 
will, even in the matter of founding Constantinople, 
and that he had but obeyed the clearly expressed 
command of Heaven. In one of his edicts he in- 
cidentally refers to Constantinople as the city which 



266 Constantine 

he founded in obedience to the mandate of God 
{yubente Deo). It is a phrase which has meant much 
or Httle according to the character of the kings who 
have employed it. With Constantine it meant much, 
and, above all, he wished it to mean much to his 
subjects. 

Archaeologists have not found it an easy task to 
trace the line of the walls of Constantine, especially 
on the landward side. It followed the coast of the 
Propontis from Seraglio Point, the Emperor adding 
height and strength to the wall of Severus and ex- 
tending it to the gate of St. yEmilianus, which 
formed the south-west limit of his city. This section 
was thrown down by an earthquake and had to be 
rebuilt by Arcadius and Theodosius II. From St. 
.^milianus the landward wall, with seven gates and 
ninety-five towers, stretched across from the waters 
of the Propontis to those of the Golden Horn, which 
was reached, it is supposed, at a point near the mod- 
ern Djubali Kapou. This was demolished when the 
city had outgrown it, and Theodosius erected the 
new great wall which still stands almost unimpaired. 
The course of the old one can hardly be traced, but 
it is generally assumed that it did not include all the 
seven hills of Constantinople, though New Rome, like 
Old Rome, dehghted in the epithet of Septicollis — 
the Seven-Hilled. Along the Golden Horn no wall 
was built until five centuries had elapsed. On this 
side Constantine considered that the city was ade- 
quately protected by the waters of the estuary, 
closed against the attack of an enemy by a huge iron 
chain, supported on floats, which stretched from the 



The Foundation of Constantinople 267 

Acropolis of St. Demetrius across to the modern 
Galata. Confidence in the chain — some links of 
which are still preserved in the Turkish arsenal — 
seems to have been thoroughly justified. Only once 
in all the many sieges of Constantinople was it suc- 
cessfully pierced, when, in 1203, the Crusading Latins 
burst in upon the capital of the East. 

Within the area we have described, great if com- 
pared with the original Byzantium, but small in 
comparison with the size to which it grew by the 
reign of Theodosius II., Constantine planned his 
city. Probably no great capital has ever been built 
so rapidly. It was finished, or so nearly finished 
that it was possible to hold a solemn service of dedi- 
cation, by May, 330 — that is to say, within four yecirs. 
Throughout that period Constantine seems to have 
had no thought for anything else. He urged on the 
work with an enthusiasm equal to that which Dido 
had manifested in encouraging her Tyrians to raise 
the walls of Carthage, — histans operi regnisque fu- 
tiiris. 

The passion for bricks and mortar consumed him. 
Like Augustus, he thought that a great imperial city 
could not be too lavishly adorned as a visible proof 
of present magnificence and a guarantee of future 
permanence. Nor was it in Constantinople alone 
that he built. Throughout his reign new public 
buildings kept rising in Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, 
and the cities of Gaul. His impatience manifested 
itself in his letters to his provincial governors. " Send 
me word," he wrote imperiously to one of them, " not 
that work has been started on your buildings, but 



268 Constantine 

that the buildings are finished." To build Constan- 
tinople he ransacked the entire world, first for archi- 
tects and builders, and then for art treasures. With 
such impetuous haste there was sure to be scamped 
work. Some of the buildings crumbled at the first 
slight tremor of earthquake or did not even require 
that impulse from without to collapse into ruin. It 
is by no means impossible that the havoc which 
seems to have been wrought in Constantinople by 
earthquakes during the next two or three centuries 
was largely due, not to the violence of the seismic 
disturbances but to insecure foundations and bad 
materials. The cynical Julian compared the city of 
Constantine to the fabled gardens of Adonis, which 
were planted afresh each morning and withered anew 
each night. Doubtless there was a substantial basis 
of fact for that bitter jibe. 

Yet, when all allowances are made, it was a mar- 
vellous city which Constantine watched as it rose 
from its foundation. Those who study the archae- 
ology of Constantinople in the rich remains which 
have survived in spite of Time and the Turk, are 
surprised to find how constantly the history of the 
particular spot which they are studying takes them 
straight back to Constantine. Despite the multi- 
tude of Emperors and Sultans who have succeeded 
him, each anxious to leave his mark behind him in 
stone, or brick, or marble, Constantinople is still the 
city of Constantine. In the centre, he laid out the 
Augustaeum, the ancient equivalent, as it has well 
been pointed out, of the modern " Place Imperiale." 
It was a large open space, paved throughout in 




ST. HELENA AND THE CROSS. 

BY CRANACH. LICHTENSTEIN GALLERY, VIENNA. 



The Foundation of Constantinople 269 

marble, but of unknown shape, and historians have 
disagreed upon the probability of its having been 
circular, square, or of the shape of a narrow rect- 
angle. It was full of noble statuary, and was sur- 
rounded by an imposing pile of stately buildings. 
To the north lay the great church of Sancta Sophia; 
on the east the Senate House of the Augustaeum, 
so called to distinguish it from the Senate House of 
the Forum ; on the south lay the palace, entered by 
an enormous brazen gate, called Chalce, the palace 
end of the Hippodrome, and the Baths of Zeuxip- 
pus. The street connecting the Augustaeum with 
the Forum of Constantine was known as Miariy or 
Middle-street, and was entered on the western side. 
In the Augustaeum, which later Emperors filled with 
famous statues, there stood in Constantine's day a 
single marble column known as the Milion — from 
which were measured distances throughout the Em- 
pire, — a marble group representing Constantine and 
Helena standing on either side of a gigantic cross, 
and a second statue of Helena upon a pedestal of 
porphyry. It was in this Augustaeum, moreover, 
that was to stand for a thousand years the huge 
equestrian statue of Justinian, known through all 
the world and described by many a traveller before 
the capture of the city by the Turks, who broke 
it into a thousand pieces. 

To the west of the Augustaeum lay the Forum of 
Constantine, elliptical in form and surrounded by 
noble colonnades, which terminated at either end in 
a spacious portico in the shape of a triumphal arch. 
In the centre, which, according to an old tradition, 



270 Constantine 

marked the very spot on which Constantine had 
pitched his camp when besieging Licinius, stood, 
and still stands, though in sadly mutilated and shat- 
tered guise, the Column of Constantine, which has 
long been known either as the Burnt Pillar, owing 
to the damage which it has suffered by fire, or as the 
Porphyry Pillar, because of the material of which it 
was composed. There were eight drums of por- 
phyry in all, brought specially from Rome, each 
about ten feet in height, bound with wide bands 
of brass wrought into the shape of laurel wreaths. 
These rested upon a stylobate of white marble, 
some nineteen feet high, which in turn stood upon a 
stereobate of similar height composed of four spa- 
cious steps. Sacred relics were enclosed — or are 
said to have been enclosed — within this pediment, 
including things so precious as Mary Magdalene's 
alabaster box, the crosses of the two thieves who 
had suffered with Christ upon Mount Calvary, the 
adze with which Noah had fashioned the Ark out of 
rough, primeval timber, and — in strange company — 
the very Palladium of ancient Rome, transported 
from the Capitol to an alien and a rival soil. At 
the foot of the column there was placed the follow- 
ing inscription : " O Christ, Ruler and Master of the 
world, to Thee have I now consecrated this obedi- 
ent city and this sceptre and the power of Rome. 
Guard and deliver it from every harm." 

At the summit of the column was a colossal statue 
of Apollo in bronze, filched from Athens, where it 
was believed to be a genuine example of Pheidias. 
But before the statue had been raised into position, 





1 


» 




9 


i 


m^ 


^^.-^^^^^ 


3H^' 


1 




COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 

FROM GROSVENOR'S" CONSTANTINOPLE." 



The Foundation of Constantinople 271 

it suffered unworthy mutilation. The head of Apollo 
was removed and replaced by a head of Constantine. 
This may be interpreted as a confession of the sculp- 
tors of the day that they were unable to produce a 
statue worthy of their great Emperor ; but the fact 
that a statue of Apollo was chosen for this doubtful 
honour of mutilation is worth at least passing remark, 
when we remember that before his conversion Con- 
stantine had selected Apollo for special reverence. 
It is certainly strange that the first Christian Em- 
peror should have been willing to be represented, 
on the site which was ever afterwards to be associated 
with his name, by a statue round which clustered so 
many pagan associations. He did not even disdain 
the pagan inscription, "To Constantine shining like 
the Sun " ; nor did he reject the pagan attribute of a 
radiated crown around the head. In the right hand 
of Apollo the old Greek artist had placed a lance ; 
in the left a globe. That globe was now surmounted 
by a cross and lo ! Apollo had become Constantine ; 
the most radiant of the gods of Olympus had become 
the champion of Christ upon earth. The fate of 
this statue — which was held in such superstitious 
reverence that for centuries all horsemen dismounted 
before passing it, while below it, on every first day 
of September, Emperor, Patriarch, and clergy as- 
sembled to chant hymns of prayer and praise — may 
be briefly told. In 477 the globe was thrown down 
by an earthquake. The lance suffered a like fate in 
541, while the statue itself came crashing to earth in 
1 105, killing a number of persons in its fall. The 
column was then surmounted by a cross, and fire and 



272 Constantine 

time have reduced it to its present almost shapeless 
and unrecognisable mass. 

Close to the Augustseum there began to rise the 
stately magnificence of the Imperial Palace, the Great 
Palace, ro fxiya TtaXatiov, as it was called to dis- 
tinguish it from all others. This was really a cluster 
of palaces spread over an enormous area, a self-con- 
tained city within itself, strongly protected with 
towers and walls. Here were the Imperial residences, 
gardens, churches, barracks, and baths, and for eight 
hundred years, until this quarter was forsaken for the 
palace of Blachernse in another region of the city. 
Emperors continued to build and rebuild on this 
favoured site. In later years the Great Palace con- 
sisted of an interconnected group of buildings bearing 
such names as Chrysotriklinon, Trikonchon, Daphne, 
— so called from a diviner's column brought to Con- 
stantinople from the Grove of Daphne near Antioch, 
— Chalce, Boucoleon, and Manavra. One at least of 
these dated back to Constantine. This was the Por- 
phyry Palace, with a high pyramidal roof, constructed 
of porphyry brought especially from Rome. It was 
dedicated to the service of the ladies of the Imperial 
Family, who retired thither to be away from the 
vexations, intrigues, and anxieties of every-day life 
during the time of their pregnancy. In the seclusion 
of this Porphyry Palace they were undisturbed and 
secure, and the children born within walls thus sacred 
to Imperial maternity were distinguished by the title 
of " Porphyrogeniti," which plays so prominent a 
part in Byzantine history. 

Constantine built below ground as well as above. 



The Foundation of Constantinople 2'j'i^ 

One of the principal drawbacks— perhaps the only- 
one — to the perfect suitabihty of the site of Constan- 
tinople was that it contained very few natural springs. 
Water, therefore, had to be brought into the town 
by gigantic aqueducts and stored in cisterns, some 
small, some of enormous size, which must have cost 
fabulous sums. The two greatest of these are still 
in good preservation after nearly sixteen centuries of 
use. One is the Cistern of Philoxenos, called by the 
Turks Bin Bir Derek, or the Thousand and One 
Columns. The columns stand in sixteen rows of 
fourteen columns each, each column consisting of 
three shafts, and each shaft being eighteen feet in 
height, though all the lower and most of the middle 
tiers have long been hidden by masses of impacted 
earth. Philoxenos, whose name is thus immortalised 
in this stupendous work, came to Constantinople 
from Rome at the request of the Emperor, and 
lavished his fortune upon the construction of this 
cistern in proof of his public spirit and in order to 
please his master. Assistance was also invited from 
the public. And just as in our own day subscriptions 
are often coaxed out of reluctant purses by deft ap- 
peal to the harmless vanity which delights to see 
one's own name inscribed upon a foundation stone, 
so in this Cistern of Philoxenos there are still to be 
deciphered upon the columns the names of the 
donors, names, as Mr. Grosvenor points out in his 
most interesting account of these cisterns, which are 
wholly Greek. " It is a striking evidence," he says, 
"how little Roman was the Romanised capital, that 
every inscription is in Greek." The second great 



2 74 Constantine 

cistern is the Royal or Basilike Cistern, begun by 
Constantine and restored by Justinian, which is called 
by the Turks Yeri Batan Serai, or the Underground 
Palace. This is supported by three hundred and 
thirty-six columns, standing twelve feet apart in 
twenty-eight symmetrical rows. The cistern is three 
hundred and ninety feet long and a hundred and 
seventy-four feet wide, and still supplies water from 
the Aqueduct of Valens as fresh as when its first 
stone was laid. 

The chief glories of Constantinople, however, were 
the Hippodrome and the churches. With the latter 
we may deal very briefly, the more so because the 
world-renowed St. Sophia is not the St. Sophia which 
Constantine built, but the work of Justinian. Con- 
stantine's church, on which he and many of his suc- 
cessors lavished their treasures, was burnt to the 
ground and utterly consumed in the tumult of the 
Nika which laid half the city in ashes. Nor had St. 
Sophia been intended to be the metropolitan church. 
That distinction belonged to the church which Con- 
stantine had dedicated not to the Wisdom but to the 
Peace of God, to St. Irene. It, too, shared the fate 
of the sister church in the tumult of the Nika, and 
was similarly rebuilt by Justinian. This was regarded 
as the Patriarchal church and called by that name, 
for here the Patriarch conducted the daily services, 
since the church had no clergy of its own. It was at 
the high altar of St. Irene that the Patriarch Alexan- 
der in 335 prayed day and night that God would 
choose between himself and Arius ; while the answer 
— or what was taken for the answer — was delivered 



The Foundation of Constantinople 275 

at the foot of Constantine's Column. It was in this 
church nearly half a century later that the great 
Arian controversy was ended in 381, and here that 
the Holy Spirit was declared equal to the Father 
and the Son. Since the Ottoman conquest this 
church — the sole survivor of all that in Byzantine 
times once stood in the region of what is now the 
Seraglio — has been used as an arsenal and military 
museum. On its walls hang suits of armour, helmets, 
maces, spears, and swords of a bygone age, while 
the ground floor is stacked with modern rifles. 
The temple of " the Peace that Passeth Understand- 
ing " has been transformed into a temple of war. 
Mr. Grosvenor well sums up its history in the fine 
phrase, " Saint Irene is a prodigious hearthstone, 
on which all the ashes of religion and of triumph and 
surrender have grown cold." 

There is yet another church in Constantinople 
which calls for notice. It is the one which Constan- 
tine dedicated to the Holy Trinity, though its name 
was soon afterwards changed to that of the Holy 
Apostles, in honour of the remains of Timothy, An- 
drew, and Luke, the body of St. Mathias, the head of 
James, the brother of Jesus, and the head of St. 
Euphemia, which were enshrined under the great 
High Altar. So rich a store of relics was held to 
justify the change of name. It was from the pulpit 
of this Church of the Holy Apostles that John Chry- 
sostom denounced the Empress Eudoxia, but the 
chief title of the building to remembrance is that it 
was for centuries the Mausoleum of Constantinople's 
Emperors and Patriarchs. None but members of 



276 Constantine 

the reigning house, or the supreme Heads of the 
Eastern Church, were accorded burial within its 
walls. Constantine built a splendid Heroon at the 
entrance, just as Augustus had built a magnificent 
Mausoleum on the Field of Mars. When it could 
hold no more, Justinian built another. Each monarch, 
robed and crowned in death as in life, had a marble 
sarcophagus of his own ; no one church in the world's 
history can ever have contained the dust of so much 
royalty, sanctity, and orthodoxy. Apart from the 
rest lay the tombs of Julian the Apostate and the 
four Arian Emperors, as though cut off from com- 
munion with their fellows, and removed as far outside 
the pale as the respect due to an anointed Emperor 
would permit. It was not the conquering Ottoman 
but the Latin Crusaders, the robbers of the West, 
who pillaged the sacred tombs, stole their golden 
ornaments, and flung aside the bones which had re- 
posed there during the centuries. 

We pass from the churches to the Hippodrome, 
a Campus Martius and Coliseum combined, which 
now bears the Turkish name of Atmeidan, a trans- 
lation of its ancient Greek name. Its glories have 
passed away. It has shrunk to little more than 
a third of its original proportions, and is merely a 
rough exercise ground surrounded by houses. But 
it preserves within its attenuated frame three of the 
most famous monuments of antiquity, around which 
it is possible to recreate its ancient splendours. 
These three monuments are the Egyptian obelisk, 
the Serpent Pillar, and a crumbling column that 
looks as though it must snap and fall in the first 





THE THREE EXISTING MONUMENTS OF THE HIPPODROME. 

FROM GROSVENOR'S " CONSTANTINOPLE." 



The Foundation of Constantinople 277 

storm that blows. They preserve for us the exact 
line of the old spina, round which the charioteers 
used to drive their steeds in furious rivalry. The 
obelisk stood exactly in the centre of the building, 
which was shaped like a narrow magnet with long 
arms. From the obelisk to the middle of the sphen- 
done — that is to say, the curving top of a magnet, 
or the loop of a sling — was 691 feet, while the width 
was 395 feet. The Hippodrome, therefore, was nearly 
1400 feet long by 400 wide, the proportions of three 
and a half to one being those of the Circus Maximus 
at Rome. It lay north-north-east, conforming in 
shape to the Augustaeum. The Hippodrome had 
been begun in 203 by Severus, to whom belongs the 
credit of having conceived its stupendous plan, but 
it had remained uncompleted for a century and a 
quarter. 

At the northern end, reaching straight across from 
side to side, was a lofty structure, raised upon pillars 
and enclosed within gates. Here were the stables and 
storehouses, known to the Romans by the name of 
Carceres and to the Greeks as Mangana. Above 
was a broad tribunal, in the centre of which, and 
supported by marble pillars, stood the Kathisma, 
with the throne of the Emperor well in front. This, 
in modern parlance, was the Royal Box, and, when 
the Emperor was present, the tribunal below was 
thronged with the high dignitaries of State and the 
Imperial Bodyguard, while, in front of the throne, 
but at a rather lower level, was the pillared plat- 
form, called the Pi, where stood the royal stan- 
dard-bearers. Behind this entire structure, fully 



278 Constantine 

three hundred feet wide and so spacious that it 
was dignified with the name of palace and con- 
tained long suites of royal apartments, was the 
Church of St. Stephen, through which, by means 
of a spiral stairway, access was obtained to the 
Kathisma. It was always used by the Emperor on 
his visits to the Hippodrome, and was considered to 
be profaned if trodden by meaner mortals. The 
palace, raised as it was over the stables of the 
Hippodrome and looking down the entire length of 
the arena, had no communication with the body of 
the building, and on either side the long arms of the 
Hippodrome terminated in blank walls. The first 
tier of seats, known as the Bouleutikon or Podium, 
was raised thirteen feet above the arena. This was 
the place of distinction. At the back rose tier upon 
tier, broken half-way by a wide passage, while at the 
very top of all was a broad promenade running right 
round the building from pole to pole of the magnet. 
This was forty feet above the ground, and the 
benches and promenades were composed of gleam- 
ing marble raised upon arches of brick. There was 
room here for eighty thousand spectators to as- 
semble in comfort, and one seems to hear ringing 
down the ages the frenzied shouts of the multitudes 
which for centuries continued to throng this mighty 
building, of which now scarce one stone stands upon 
another. Mr. Grosvenor very justly says that 

" no theatre, no palace, no public building has to-day a 
promenade so magnificent. . . . Within was all the 
pomp and pageantry of all possible imperial and popular 




SCALE.-JCentimelre. io SONeires or 38^ Feet. 



PLAN OF THE HIPPODROME. 

FROM GROSVENOR'S " CONSTANTINOPLE." 



The Foundation of Constantinople 279 

contest and display ; without, piled high around, were 
the countless imposing structures ' of that city which for 
more than half a thousand years was the most elegant, 
the most civilised, almost the only civilised and polished 
city in the world,' Beyond was the Golden Horn, 
crowded with shipping ; the Bosphorus in its winding 
beauty ; the Marmora, studded with islands and fringing 
the Asiatic coast, the long line of the Arganthonius 
Mountains and the peaks of the Bithynian Olympus, 
glittering with eternal snow — all combining in a pano- 
rama which even now no other city of mankind can 
rival." 

In the middle of the arena stood the spma, a mar- 
ble wall, four feet high and six hundred feet long, 
with the Goal of the Blues at the northern end 
facing the throne, and that of the Greens facing the 
sphendone. The spina was decorated with the 
choicest statuary, including the three surviving mon- 
uments. Of these the Egyptian obelisk, belonging to 
the reign of Thotmes III., had already stood for 
more centuries in Egypt than have elapsed since 
Constantine transported it to his new capital. When 
it arrived, the engineers could not raise it into posi- 
tion and it remained prone until, in 381, one Proclus, 
a praefect of the city, succeeded in erecting it upon 
copper cubes. The shattered column belongs to a 
much later epoch than that of Constantine. It was 
set up by Constantine VIII. Porphyrogenitus, and 
once glittered in the sun, for it was covered with 
plates of burnished brass. The third, and by far 
the most interesting monument of the three, is the 
famous column of twisted serpents from Delphi. Its 



t^^ 



28o Constantine 

romantic history never grows dull by repetition. 
For this is that serpent column of Corinthian brass 
which was dedicated to Apollo by the thankful and 
exultant Greeks after the battle of Platsea, when the 
hosts of the Persian Xerxes were thrust back from 
the soil of Greece never to return. It bears upon its 
coils the names of the thirty-one Greek cities which 
fought for freedom, and there is still to be seen, in- 
scribed in slightly larger characters than the rest, the 
name of the Tenians, who, as Herodotus tells us, 
succeeded in proving to the satisfaction of their sis- 
ter states that they deserved inclusion in so honour- 
able a memorial. The history of this column from 
the fifth century before the Christian era down to 
the present time is to be read in a long succession of 
Greek, Roman, mediaeval, and modern historians; and 
as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century 
the three heads of the serpents were still in their 
place. But even in its mutilated state there is per- 
haps no relic of antiquity which can vie in interest 
with this column, associated as it was in the day of 
its fashioning with Pausanias and Themistocles, with 
Xerxes and with Mardonius. We have then to think 
of it standing for seven centuries in the holiest place 
of all Hellas, the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. There it 
was surmounted by a golden tripod, on which sat the 
priestess who uttered the oracles which, in important 
crises, prompted the policy and guided the develop- 
ment of the cities of Greece. The column is hollow, 
and it is possible that the mephitic exhalations, 
which are supposed to have stupefied the priestess 
when she was possessed by the god, mounted up 



The Foundation of Constantinople 281 

the interior of the spiral. The golden tripod was 
stolen during the wars with Philip of Macedon; Con- 
stantine replaced it by another when he brought the 
column from Delphi to Constantinople. And there, 
surviving all the vicissitudes through which the city 
has passed, still stands the column, still fixed to the 
pedestal upon which Constantine mounted it, many 
feet below the present level of the Atmeidan, still an 
object of superstition to Christian as well as to the 
Turk, and owing, no doubt, its marvellous preserva- 
tion to the indefinable awe which clings, even in ruin, 
to the sacred relics of a discredited religion. 

To the Hippodrome itself there were four princi- 
pal entrances. The gate of the Blues was close by 
the Carceres or Mangana, on the western side, with 
the gate of the Greens facing it. At the other end, 
just where the long straight line was broken and 
the building began to curve into the sphendone, was 
a gate on the eastern side which bore the ill-omened 
name of the Gate of the Dead, opposite another, 
the name of which is not known. The gate of the 
Blues — the royal faction — was the grand entrance for 
all state processions. 

Such was the outward form of the famous Hippo- 
drome, and Mr. Grosvenor justly dwells on the im- 
posing vastness and beauty of its external appearance. 

"The walls were of brick, laid in arches and faced by 
a row of Corinthian pillars. What confronted the spec- 
tator's eye was a wall in superposed and continuous 
arches, seen through an endless colonnade. Seventeen 
columns were still erect upon their bases in 1529. Gyl- 
lius, who saw them, says that their diameter was three 



282 Constantine 

and eleven-twelfths feet. Each was twenty-eight feet 
high, and pedestal and capital added seven feet more. 
They stood eleven feet apart. Hence, deducting for 
the gates, towers, and palace, at least two hundred and 
sixty columns would be required in the circuit. If one, 
with the curiosity of a traveller, wished to journey round 
the entire perimeter, he must continue on through a dis- 
tance of three thousand and fifteen feet, before his pil- 
grimage ended at the spot where it had begun; and ever, 
as he toiled along, there loomed into the air that pro- 
digious mass, forty feet above his head. No wonder that 
there remained, even in the time of the Sultan Soulei- 
man, enough to construct that most superb of mosques, 
the Souleimanieh, from the fallen columns, the splintered 
marbles, the brick and stone of the Hippodrome." 

But it was not merely the shell of the Hippodrome 
that was imposing by reason of its size and magnifi- 
cence. It was filled with the choicest art treasures 
of the ancient world. Constantine stole masterpieces 
with the catholicity of taste, the excellence of artistic 
judgment, and the callous indifference to the rights 
of ownership which characterised Napoleon. He 
stripped the world naked of its treasures, as St. 
Jerome neatly remarked.* Rome and its conquer- 
ing proconsuls and propraetors had done the same. 
Constantine now robbed Rome and took whatever 
Rome had left. Greece was still a fruitful quarry. 
We have already spoken of the Serpent Column, 
which was torn from Delphi. The historians have 
preserved for us the names of a number of other 
famous works of art which adorned the spina and 

* Constantinopolis dedicatur pcene ofnniu7n urbium nuditate. 



The Foundation of Constantinople 283 

the promenade of the Hippodrome. There was a 
Brazen Eagle, clutching a writhing snake in its talons 
and rising in the air with wings outspread; the Her- 
cules of Lysippus, of a size so heroic that it measured 
six feet from the foot to the knee ; the Brazen Ass 
and its driver, a mere copy of which Augustus had 
offered to his own city of Nicopolis founded on the 
shores of Actium; the Poisoned Bull; the Angry Ele- 
phant; the gigantic figure of a woman holding in her 
hand a horse and its rider of life size ; the Calydonian 
Boar; eight Sphinxes, and last, but by no means 
least, the Horses of Lysippus. These horses have 
a history with which no other specimens of equine 
statuary can compare. They first adorned a temple 
at Corinth. Taken to Rome by Memmius when he 
laid Corinth in ashes, they were placed before the 
Senate House. Nero removed them that they might 
grace his triumphal arch; Trajan, with juster excuse, 
did the same. Constantine had them sent to Con- 
stantinople. Then, after nearly nine centuries had 
passed, they were again packed up and transported 
back to Italy. The aged Dandolo had claimed them 
as part of his share of the booty and sent them to 
Venice. There they remained for almost six cent- 
uries more until Napoleon cast covetous eyes upon 
them and had them taken to Paris to adorn his Arc 
de Triomphe. On his downfall Paris was compelled 
to restore them to Venice and the horses of Lysippus 
paw the air once more above the roof of St. Mark's 
Cathedral. 

We have thus briefly enumerated the most mag- 
nificent public buildings with which Constantine 



284 Constantine 

adorned his new capital, and the choicest works of 
art with which these were further embelHshed. The 
Emperor pressed on the work with extraordinary 
activity. No one beheves the story of Codinus 
that only nine months elapsed between the laying 
of the first stone and the formal dedication which 
took place in the Hippodrome on May nth, 330, 
but it is only less wonderful that so much should 
have been done in four years. The same un- 
trustworthy author also tells a strange story of 
how Constantine took advantage of the absence of 
some of his ofificers on public business to build exact 
models of their Roman mansions in Constantinople, 
and transport all their household belongings, families, 
and households to be ready for them on their return 
as a pleasant surprise. What is beyond doubt is 
that the Emperor did offer the very greatest induce- 
ments to the leading men of Rome to leave Rome 
for good and make Constantinople their home. He 
even published an edict that no one dwelling in Asia 
Minor should be allowed to enter the Imperial service 
unless he built himself a house in Constantinople. 
Peter the Great issued a like order when he founded 
St. Petersburg and opened a window looking on 
Europe. The Emperor changed the destination of 
the corn ships of Egypt from Rome to Constantin- 
ople, established a lavish system of distributions of 
wheat and oil and even of money and wine, and 
created at the cost of the treasury an idle and cor- 
rupt proletariate. He thus transported to his new 
capital all the luxuries and vices of the old. 




CHAPTER XIV 

ARIUS AND ATHANASIUS 

WE have seen how, at the conclusion of the 
Council of Nicaea, it looked as if the Church 
had entered into her rest. The day of persecution 
was over; Christianity had found in the Emperor 
an ardent and impetuous champion ; a creed had 
been framed which seemed to establish upon a sure 
foundation the deepest mysteries of the faith ; heresy 
not only lay under anathema, but had been reduced 
to silence. Throughout the East — the West had 
remained practically untroubled — the feeling was one 
of confidence and joy. Constantine rejoiced as 
though he had won a personal victory; his subjects, 
we are told,* thought the kingdom of Christ had 
already begun. When Gregory, the Illuminator of 
Armenia, met his son, Aristaces, returning from 
Nicaea and heard from his lips the text of the new 
creed, he at once exclaimed : "Yea, we glorify Him 
who was before the ages, by adoring the Holy Trin- 
ity and the one Godhead of the Father, and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost, now and for ever, 
through ages and ages." 



* De Vita Const., iii., c. 14. 



285 



286 Constantine 

Moreover, the Emperor's violent edicts against 
the Arians, and the banishment of Eusebius and 
Theognis, all indicated a settled and rooted convic- 
tion which nothing could shake, while the death 
of the Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria and the 
election of Athanasius in his stead must have 
strengthened enormously the Catholic party in 
Egypt and, indeed, throughout the East. Alex- 
ander had died within a few months of his return 
from Nicaea, in the early part of 326. He is said, 
when on his death-bed, to have foretold the eleva- 
tion of Athanasius and the trials which lay before 
him. He had called for Athanasius — who at the 
moment was away from Egypt — and another Athana- 
sius, who was present in the room, answered for the 
absent one. The dying man, however, was not 
deceived and said : " Athanasius, you think you 
have escaped, but you will not ; you cannot." We 
need not recount the stories which the malignity 
of his enemies invented in order to cast discredit 
upon Athanasius' election. There is no reason to 
doubt either its validity or its overwhelming popu- 
larity in Alexandria, where, while the Egyptian 
bishops were in session, the Catholics outside the 
building kept up the unceasing cry : " Give us 
Athanasius, the good, the holy, the ascetic." The 
election was not unanimous. Evidently some 
thought the situation required a conciliatory de- 
meanour towards the beaten Arians. But that 
was not the view of the majority, who, by choos- 
ing Athanasius, set the best fighting man on 
their side upon the throne of St. Mark. They 



Arius and Athanasius 287 

did wisely. Tolerance was not properly understood 
in the fourth century. 

The outward peace lasted little more than two 
years. Unfortunately, we are almost entirely in the 
dark as to what took place during that time, beyond 
the certain fact of the recall of Arius, Eusebius, and 
Theognis. Arius had been banished to Galatia; 
then we read of the sentence being partially re- 
voked, and the only embargo placed upon his free- 
dom of movement was that he was forbidden to 
return to Alexandria. Did this take place before 
the recall of Eusebius and Theognis ? Socrates 
gives the text of a strange letter written by these 
two prelates to the principal bishops of the Church, 
in which they definitely say that, inasmuch as Arius 
has been recalled from exile, they hope the bishops 
will use their influence with the Emperor on their 
behalf. 

" After closely studying the question of the Homo- 
ousion," they say, " we are wholly intent on preserving 
peace and we have been seduced by no heresy. We sub- 
scribed to the Creed, after suggesting what we thought 
best for the Church, but we refused to sign the anathema, 
not because we had any fault to find with the Creed, 
but because we did not consider Arius to be what he 
was represented as being. The letters we had received 
from him and the discourses we had heard him de- 
liver compelled us to form a totally different estimate of 
his character." 

The authenticity of this letter has been sharply 
called in question, for there is no other scrap of 



288 Constantine 

evidence confirming the statement that Arius was 
recalled before Eusebius and Theognis — in itself a 
most improbable step. Constantine had issued an 
edict that any one concealing a copy of the writings 
of Arius and not instantly handing it over to the 
authorities to be burnt, should be put to death, and 
it is much more probable that Arius was recalled 
after, rather than before, Eusebius of Nicomedia. 
The " History " of Socrates contains many letters of 
doubtful authenticity and some which are, beyond 
dispute, forgeries. Among the latter we may cer- 
tainly include the portentously long document in 
which Constantine is represented as making a grossly 
personal attack on the banished Arius. We will con- 
tent ourselves with quoting the most vituperative 
passage : 

" Look ! Look all of you ! See what wretched cries 
he utters, writhing in pain from the bite of the serpent's 
tooth ! See how his veins and flesh are poison-tainted 
and what agonised convulsions they excite ! See how 
his body is wasted away with disease and squalor, with 
dirt and lamentation, with pallor and horror ! See how 
he is withered up with a thousand evils ! See how 
horrible to look upon is his filthy tangled head of hair ; 
how he is half dead from top to toe ; how languid is the 
aspect of his haggard, bloodless face ; how madness, 
fury, and vanity, swooping down upon him together, 
have reduced him to what he is — a savage and wild 
beast ! He does not even recognise the horrible 
situation he is in. * I am beside myself with joy ' ; he 
says, ' I dance and leap with glee ; I fly ; I am a happy 
boy again.' " 




ST. ATHANASIUS. 

FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRINT ROOM. 



Arius and Athanasius 289 

Assuredly this raving production never came 
from the pen of Constantine, and it bears no resem- 
blance to his ordinary style. The resounding plati- 
tude with which it opens, " An evil interpreter is 
really the image and counterpart of the Devil," 
leads us confidently to acquit the Emperor of its 
authorship and ascribe it to some anonymous and 
unknown ecclesiastic desirous at once of edifying 
and terrifying the faithful. 

We can only surmise the circumstances which 
worked upon the Emperor's mind and caused his 
complete change of front with respect to Arianism 
and its exponents. Sozomen, indeed, attributes it 
wholly to the influence of his sister, Constantia. 
According to an Arian legend quoted by that 
historian, it was revealed to the Princess in " a 
vision from God " that it was the exiled bishops 
who held the true orthodox doctrine and, therefore, 
that they had been unjustly banished. She worked 
upon the impressionable mind of her brother, and the 
two bishops were recalled. When Constantine asked 
whether they still held the Nicene doctrines to 
which they had subscribed, they replied that they 
had assented, not from conviction, but from the 
fear lest the Emperor should be disgusted at the 
dissensions among the Christians, and revert to pa- 
ganism. This curious story certainly tends to con- 
firm the tradition that it was Constantia who was 
the court patroness of the Arians. She had been 
for years Empress in the palace of Nicomedia, and 
it is easy to suppose that the very able Bishop 
of that city had established a strong ascendency 



ago Constantine 

over her mind, long before the Arian controversy 
arose. 

The upshot of the whole matter — however the 
change was brought about — was that in the year 
329, the Arian and Eusebian party was paramount 
at the Imperial Court. They had persuaded the 
Emperor that theirs was the party of reason, and 
that those who persisted in troubling the peace of 
the Church by holding extreme views and seeking 
to impose rigorous tests were the followers of the 
new Patriarch of Alexandria. They had subscribed 
to the Nicene Creed or to a Creed which — so they 
persuaded the Emperor — was practically indistin- 
guishable from it, and they now plotted, with great 
skill and adroitness, to undermine the position of 
Athanasius. How they conducted the intrigue we 
do not know, but it is significant that after the 
break up of the Council of Nicaea we hear no more, 
during Constantine's lifetime, of his long-trusted 
adviser Hosius, Bishop of Cordova. The dreadful 
tragedies in the Imperial Family had taken place at 
Rome in the summer of 326. It is possible that 
Hosius made no secret of his horror at these 
monstrous crimes and retired to his Spanish bishop- 
ric, and that Eusebius of Nicomedia, when brought 
into communication with Constantine, was not so 
exacting in his demand for a show of penitence and 
proved more skilful in allaying the Emperor's 
remorse. Be that as it may, as soon as Eusebius 
felt assured of his position, he lost no time in pro- 
secuting a vigorous campaign against those who had 
triumphed over him at Nicaea. The first blow was 



Arius and Athanasius 291 

directed against Eustathius, the Bishop of Antioch, 
who was charged with heresy, profligacy, and 
tyranny by the two Eusebii and a number of other 
bishops, then on their way to Jerusalem. Whether 
the charges were well founded or not, the tribunal 
was a prejudiced one and the sentence of de- 
privation and banishment passed upon Eustathius 
was bitterly resented in Antioch. 

After certain other bishops had met with a like fate, 
the Eusebii flew at higher game and attacked Ath- 
anasius. They had already entered into an under- 
standing with the Meletian faction in Egypt, who 
carefully kept alive the charges against Athanasius, 
and now they again took up the cudgels on behalf 
of Arius. Eusebius wrote to the Patriarch asking him 
to restore Arius to communion on the ground that 
he had been grievously misrepresented. Athanasius 
bluntly refused. Arius, he said, had started a deadly 
heresy: he had been anathematised by an CEcumeni- 
cal Council: how, then, could he be restored to 
communion? Eusebius and Arius appealed to the 
Emperor. Constantine, who had previously ordered 
Arius to attend at court and promised him signal 
proof of his regard and permission to return to Alex- 
andria, sent a peremptory message to Athanasius 
bidding him admit Arius. When Athanasius, on the 
score of conscience, returned a steady refusal, the 
Emperor angrily threatened that, if he did not throw 
open his church doors to all who desired to enter, he 
would send an officer to turn him out of his church 
and expel him from Alexandria. "Now that you 
have full knowledge of my will," he added, " see that 



292 Constantine 

you provide uninterrupted entry to all who wish to 
enter the church. If I hear that you have prevented 
any one from joining the services, or have shut the 
doors in their faces, I will at once despatch some one 
to deport you from Alexandria." The threat did 
not terrify Athanasius, who declared that there could 
be no fellowship between heretics and true believ- 
ers. Nor was the Imperial ofKcer sent. 

Then began an extraordinary campaign of calumny 
against the Patriarch, who was accused of taxing 
Egypt in order to buy a supply of linen garments, 
called " sticharia," for his church ; of instigating one 
Macarius to upset a communion table and break a 
sacred chalice ; of murdering a Meletian bishop 
named Arsenius, who was presently found alive and 
well ; and of other crimes equally preposterous and 
unfounded. It was the Meletian irreconcilables in 
Egypt who brought these calumnies forward, but 
Athanasius had no doubt that the moving spirit was 
none other than Eusebius himself. And his enemies, 
whoever they were, were untiring and implacable. 
As soon as one calumny was refuted, they were 
ready with another, and all this time there was 
Eusebius at the Emperor's side, continually suggest- 
ing that with so much smoke there needs must be 
some fire, and that Athanasius ought to be called 
upon to clear himself, lest the scandal should do in- 
jury to the Church. Constantine summoned a coun- 
cil to try Athanasius in 333, and fixed the place of 
meeting in Caesarea, — a tolerably certain proof that 
the two Eusebii were acting in concert. For some 
reason not stated the bishops did not assemble until 



Arius and Athanasius 293 

the following year, and then Athanasius refused to 
attend. Not until 335 did Athanasius stand before 
his episcopal judges at Tyre. 

Accompanied by some fifty of his suffragans, 
Athanasius had made the journey, only to find him- 
self confronted by a packed council. All his bitter- 
est enemies were there ; all the old unsubstantiated 
charges were resuscitated. His election was said to 
be uncanonical ; he was charged with personal un- 
chastity and with cruelty towards certain Meletian 
bishops and priests ; and, most curious of all, the an- 
cient calumnies of " The Broken Chalice " and " The 
Dead Man's Hand " were revived and pressed, as 
though they had never been confuted. With re- 
spect to the latter charge, Athanasius enjoyed one 
moment of signal triumph. After his accusers had 
caused a thrill of horror to pass through the Council 
by producing a blackened and withered hand, which 
they declared to belong to the missing Bishop Ar- 
senius, who was supposed to have suffered foul play, 
Athanasius asked whether any of those present had 
known Arsenius personally. A number of bishops 
claimed acquaintance, and then Athanasius gave the 
signal for a man, who was standing by closely 
muffled in a cloak, to come forward. " Lift up your 
head ! " said Athanasius. The unknown did so, and 
lo ! it was none other than Arsenius himself. Ath- 
anasius drew aside the cloak, first from one hand and 
then from the other. " Has God given to any man," 
he asked quietly, "more hands than two?" His 
enemies were silenced, but only for the moment. 
One of them, cleverer than the rest, immediately 



294 Constantine 

exclaimed that this was mere sorcery and devil's work ; 
the man was not Arsenius ; in fact, he was not even 
a man at all, but a mere counterfeit, an illusion of 
the senses produced by Athanasius* horrible pro- 
ficiency in the black art. And we are told that this 
ingenious explanation proved so convincing to the 
assembly, and created such a fury of resentment 
against Athanasius, that Dionysius, the Imperial of- 
ficer who had been deputed by Constantine to repre- 
sent him at the Council, had to hurry Athanasius on 
shipboard to save him from personal violence. 

There was clearly so little corroborative evidence 
against Athanasius that the Council dared not con- 
vict him. But, as they were equally determined not 
to acquit him, they appointed a commission of en- 
quiry to collect testimony on the spot in the Mare- 
otis district of Egypt with respect to the story of 
the Broken Chalice. The six commissioners were 
chosen in secret session by the anti-Athanasian fac- 
tion. Athanasius protested without avail against 
the selection : they were all, he said, his private en- 
emies. The commission sailed for Egypt, and Ath- 
anasius determined, with characteristic boldness, to 
go to Constantinople, confront the Emperor, and 
appeal for justice and a fair trial at the fountain- 
head. Athanasius met the Emperor as he was riding 
into the city, and stood before him in his path. 
What followed is best told by Constantine himself 
in a letter which he wrote to the Bishop of Tyre.* 
Here are his own words : 



* Sozomen II., 28. 



Arius and Athanasius 295 

" As I was returning on horseback to the city which 
bears my name, Athanasius, the Bishop, presented him- 
self so unexpectedly in the middle of the highway, with 
certain individuals who accompanied him, that I felt ex- 
ceedingly surprised on beholding him. God, who sees 
all, is my witness that at first I did not know who he was, 
but some of my attendants, having ascertained this and 
the subject of his complaint, gave me the necessary in- 
formation. I did not accord him an interview, but he 
persevered in requesting an audience, and, although I 
refused him and was on the point of ordering that he 
should be removed from my presence, he told me, with 
greater boldness than he had previously manifested, that 
he sought no other favour of me than that I should sum- 
mon you hither, in order that he might, in your presence, 
complain of the injustice that had been done to him," 

Such boldness had the success it deserved. Con- 
stantine evidently made enquires from Count Diony- 
sius, and, discovering that the Council at Tyre was 
a mere travesty of justice, ordered the bishops to 
come forthwith to Constantinople. But before these 
instructions reached them they had received the re- 
port of the Egyptian commissioners, and, on the 
strength of it, had condemned Athanasius by a ma- 
jority of votes, recognised the Meletians as orthodox, 
and, adjourning to Jerusalem for the dedication of 
the new church, had there pronounced Arius to be 
a true Catholic and in full communion with the 
Church. The Emperor's letter, which began with a 
reference to the " tumults and disorders" which had 
marked their sessions, was a plain intimation that 
he disapproved of their proceedings, and only six 



296 Constantine 

bishops, the two Eusebii and four others, travelled 
up to Constantinople. Arrived there, they changed 
their tactics, and recognising that the old charges 
against Athanasius had fallen helplessly to the 
ground, they invented another which was much 
more likely to have weight with the Emperor. 
They accused him of seeking to prevent the Alex- 
andrian corn ships from sailing to Constantinople. 
Egypt was the granary of the new Rome as well as 
of the old, and upon the regular arrival of the Egyp- 
tian wheat cargoes the tranquillity of Constantinople 
largely depended. Athanasius protested that he 
had entertained no such designs. He was, he said, 
simply a bishop of the Church, a poor man with no 
political ambition or taste for intrigue. His enemies 
retorted that he was not poor, but wealthy, and that 
he had gained a dangerous ascendency over the tur- 
bulent people of Alexandria. Constantine abruptly 
ended the dispute by banishing Athanasius to Treves, 
and the Patriarch had no choice but to obey. He 
arrived at his city of exile in 336, and was received 
with all honour by the Emperor's son Constantine, 
then installed in the Gallic capital as the Caesar of 
the West. This is tolerably certain proof that the 
Emperor did not regard him as a very dangerous 
political opponent, but banished him rather for the 
sake of religious peace. Constantine was weary of 
such interminable disputations and such intractable 
disputants. 

The exile of Athanasius was of course a signal 
victory for the Eusebians and for Arius. With the 
Patriarch of Alexandria thus safely out of the way, 



Arius and Athanasius 297 

they might look forward with confidence to gaining 
the entire court over to their side and still further 
consolidating their position in the East. Arius 
returned in triumph to Alexandria, where he had 
not set foot for many years. But his presence was 
the signal for renewed popular disturbance. The 
Catholics remained faithful to their Bishop in exile 
—St. Antony repeatedly wrote to Constantine, 
praying for Athanasius' recall — and Alexandria was 
in tumult. Constantine refused to reconsider the 
sentence of banishment on Athanasius, but he 
checked the violence of the Meletian schismatics by 
banishing John Arcaph from Alexandria, and he 
hurriedly recalled Arius to Constantinople. The 
heresiarch was summoned into the presence of the 
Emperor, who by this time was once more uneasy 
in his mind. Constantine asked him point blank 
whether he held the Faith of the Cathohc Church. 
"Can I trust you ? " he said ; " are you really of the 
true Faith? " Arius solemnly affirmed that he was 
and recited his profession of belief. " Have you ab- 
jured the errors you used to hold in Alexandria?" 
continued the Emperor ; " will you swear it before 
God?" Arius took the required oath, and the Em- 
peror was satisfied. " Go," said he, " and if your 
Faith be not sound, may God punish you for your 
perjury." 

This strange scene is described by Athanasius 
himself, who had been told the details by an eye- 
witness, a priest called Macarius. According to Soc- 
rates, Arius subscribed the declaration of the Faith 
in Constantine's presence, and the historian goes on 



298 Constantine 

to recount the foolish legend that Arius wrote down 
his real opinions on paper, which he carried under 
his arm, and so could truly swear that he " held " the 
sentiments he had written. Arius then demanded 
to be admitted to communion with the Church at 
Constantinople, as public testimony to his ortho- 
doxy, and the Patriarch Alexander was ordered to 
receive him. Alexander was a feeble old man of 
ninety-eight but he did not lack moral courage. 
He told the Emperor that his conscience would not 
allow him to offer the sacraments to one whom, in 
spite of the recent declarations of the bishops at Je- 
rusalem, he still regarded as an arch-heretic. He 
was not troubled, says Socrates,* at the thought of 
his own deposition; what he feared was the subver- 
sion of the principles of the Faith, of which he 
regarded himself as the constituted guardian. Lock- 
ing himself up within his church — the Church of St. 
Eirene — he lay prostrate before the high altar and 
remained there in earnest supplication for many days 
and nights. And the burden of his prayer was that 
if Arius's opinions were right he (Alexander) might 
not live to see him enter the church to receive the 
sacrament, but that, if he himself held the true Faith, 
Arius the impious might be punished for his impiety. 
The aged Bishop was still calling upon Heaven to 
judge between Arius and himself and declare the 
truth by some manifest sign, when the time ap- 
pointed for Arius to be received into communion 
was at hand. Arius was on his way to St. Eirene. 

* Socrates, i. , 37. 



Arius and Athanasius 299 

He had quitted the palace — says Socrates — attended 
by a crowd of Eusebian partisans, and was passing 
through the centre of the city, the observed of all 
observers.* He was in high spirits — as well he 
might be, for it was the hour of his supreme triumph. 
Then the blow fell. As he drew near the Porphyry 
Pillar in the Forum of Constantine he was suddenly 
taken ill. There was a public lavatory close by and 
he withdrew to it. When he did not return his 
friends became alarmed. Entering the place, they 
found him dead of a violent haemorrhage, with bow- 
els protruding and burst asunder, like the traitor 
Judas in the Field of Blood. One can imagine the 
extraordinary sensation which the news must have 
caused in Constantinople as it fliew from mouth to 
mouth. Not only the Patriarch Alexander, but all 
the orthodox, attributed Arius' sudden and awful end 
to the direct interposition of Providence in answer 
to their prayers. In an instant, we are told, the 
churches were crowded with excited worshippers 
and were ablaze with lights as for some happy 
festival. 

On the superstitious mind of the Emperor so 
tragic a death naturally made a deep impression. 
He was, says Athanasius, amazed. Doubtless he be- 
lieved that Arius had deceived him and that God 
had answered his prayer to punish the perjurer. 
The Eusebians were "greatly confounded. " Some 
hinted at poison, others at magic ; others were con- 
tent to look no further than natural causes. The 

* itepioTtToi. 



300 Constantine 

general verdict of antiquity, however, was almost 
unanimous in ascribing the death of Arius to the 
anger of an offended Deity. It is a view which still 
finds adherents. Cardinal Newman, for example, 
declares : 

" Under the circumstances a thoughtful mind cannot 
but account this as one of those remarkable interposi- 
tions of power by which Divine Providence urges on the 
consciences of men in the natural course of things, what 
their reason from the first acknowledges, that He is not 
indifferent to human conduct. To say that these do not 
fall within the ordinary course of His governance is 
merely to say that they are judgments, which in the com- 
mon meaning of the word stand for events extraordinary 
and unexpected." 

But that is a matter which need not be discussed 
here. What is more important to our purpose is to 
point out that the death of Arius does not seem to 
have affected the state of religious parties at Con- 
stantinople. It did not shake the position of Euse- 
bius of Nicomedia, who continued to enjoy the 
confidence of the Emperor and to act as the 
keeper of his conscience. 




CHAPTER XV 
constantine's death and character 

IT seems incontestable that Constantine degener- 
ated as he grew older. Certainly his popular- 
ity tended to decrease. This, however, is the usual 
penalty of length of reign, and in itself would not 
count for much. But one cannot overlook the 
cumulative evidence which is to be found in the 
authorities of the period. Eusebius himself admits * 
that unscrupulous men often took advantage of the 
piety and generosity of the Emperor, and many 
of the stories which he tells in Constantine's praise 
prepare us for the charges which were brought 
against him by the pagan historians. For example, 
Eusebius declares that whenever the Emperor heard 
a civil appeal, he used to make up out of his private 
purse the amount in which the losing party was 
mulcted, on the extraordinary principle that both 
the winner and the loser ought to leave their sov- 
ereign's presence equally satisfied. Such a theory 
would speedily beggar the richest treasury. Aurelius 
Victor preserves a popular saying which shews the 
general estimation in which Constantine's memory 
*De Vita Const., iv., 54. 

301 



302 Constantine 

was held. Men used to say that for the first ten 
years of his reign he was a model sovereign {prcss- 
tantissimus), for the next twelve he was a brigand 
{latro), and for the last ten a spendthrift heir, so 
called because of his preposterous extravagance 
{pupillus ob profusiones immodicas). He was nick- 
named Trachala, the obvious reference of which 
would be to his short, thick neck ; but Aurelius 
Victor appears to associate it in some way with the 
meaning of " scoffer " {irrisor). 

In greater detail Zosimus* accuses Constantine 
of wasting the public money on useless buildings. 
As a pagan, he would naturally regard expenditure 
upon the construction of sumptuous Christian 
churches as money thrown away, but it is perfectly 
certain that the state of the Imperial resources did 
not justify the Emperor in lavishing vast sums upon 
churches in all parts of the Empire. If we consider 
what must have been the capital cost of his churches 
in Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, 
Mamre, and Antioch, — to mention only a few places, 
— and remember that he was constantly urging the 
bishops to keep building and constantly sending in- 
structions to his vicars to make handsome subsidies 
out of the State funds, we cannot but conclude that 
the grumbling of the pagan tax payer was thoroughly 
well justified. Constantine, indeed, seems to have 
been as entete in the matter of building churches as 
was in our day the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria in 
the building of royal castles. Nor was this the only 
form in which the passion for bricks and mortar — // 

*ii-, 32, 35. 



Constan tine's Death and Character 303 

mal di pietra — seized him. He built a new basilica 
even in Rome — though he rarely set foot in the 
city. In Constantinople he must have sunk millions 
of unproductive capital, which were far more urgently 
required for the development of agriculture and 
commerce. In one epigrammatic sentence Zosimus 
sums up his indictment by saying that Constantine 
thought to gain distinction by lavish outlay.* 
He also wasted the public revenue on unworthy and 
useless favourites, f whom he taught, in the phrase of 
Ammianus Marcellinus, to open their greedy jaws 
^fauces aperuif). Zosimus says bluntly that in his 
opinion it was Constantine who sowed the seeds of 
the ruinous waste and destruction that prevailed 
when he wrote his history, and he roundly declares 
that the Emperor devoted his life to his own selfish 
pleasures. % 

There is another character sketch of Constantine 
which has survived for us, drawn by an even more bit- 
ter enemy than the historian Zosimus. It is to be 
found in that amusing and extraordinary y<?z/ d' esprit 
which bears the name of The Ccssars, from the 
pen of the Emperor Julian. Julian detested the 
very memory of Constantine the Great, whom he 
regarded as the arch-apostate from the ancient re- 
ligion, and, thus, when he introduced him into the 
presence of the deities of Olympus, it was really to 
pour ridicule and contempt upon his pretensions. 



* rrlv yap ddGoriav rjyEiro cpiXoviuiav (ii., 38). 
f £^S ava^ioVi xai dvoo(psXsii dyBpooTCov? Tovi (popov? 
kHdaitavcSv. 

\ nai zpvtp^ Toy fJiov kudovi (ii., 32). 



304 Constantine 

Julian describes him, at the first mention of his 
name, as a man who has seen considerable fighting, 
but has become soft through self-indulgence and 
luxury, * The deities of heaven are represented as 
sitting in conclave, while the deified Emperors ap- 
proach to join in their councils. Juhan runs over 
the hst of the great Emperors, introducing them one 
by one and making each sit by the side of the god 
whom he most resembles in character. But when 
Constantine's turn comes, it is found that he has no 
such archetype. No god will own him as his prot^g6 
or pupil, and so, after some hesitation, Constantine 
runs up to the Goddess of Luxury {Tpvq}rf), who em- 
braces him as her own darling, dresses him up in fine 
clothes, and, when she has made him smart, hands 
him over to her sister, the Goddess of Extravagance 
{Aggdtio). The irony was bitter, and the shaft sped 
home. 

The ascetic Julian does not spare his august rela- 
tive, whose title to the epithet of " Great " he would 
have laughed to scorn. He declares that Constan- 
tine's victories over the barbarians were victories 
pour rire; he represents him as a crazy being in love 
with the moon, like that half-witted Emperor of the 
Claudian house, who used to stand at night in the 
colonnades of his palace and beg the gracious 
Queen of the Sky to come down to him as she had 
come down to Endymion. Julian puts into his 
mouth a grotesque speech in which he makes Con- 
stantine claim to have been a greater general than 

* avdpa ovH ccitoXEpiov fxhv^ rjSov^ Ss nai (XTtoXavdei 
XBtpoT/Qe6tEpov (c. 15). 



Constantine's Death and Character 305 

Alexander because he fought with Romans, Ger- 
mans, and Scythians and not with mere Asiatics ; 
greater than Julius Caesar or than Augustus be- 
cause he fought not with bad men but with good ; 
and greater even than Trajan, because it is a finer 
thing to win back what you have lost than merely 
to acquire something new. The speech was received 
with ridicule by the gods, and then Hermes point- 
edly asked Constantine in the Socratic manner, 
"How would you define your ideal?" {ri xaXov 
€v6juiffa?^) " To have great riches," was Constan- 
tine's reply, " and to be able to give away lavishly, 
and satisfy all one's own desires and those of one's 
friends." The answer is significant. Julian, like 
Constantine's other critics, keeps harping on the 
same string. It is the luxury, extravagance, and 
self-indulgence of the Emperor that he singles out 
as the most glaring defect of his character and his 
squandering of the Imperial resources upon effemin- 
ate and un-Roman pomps, useless buildings, and 
greedy and unworthy favourites. Silenus, the bibu- 
lous buffoon of Olympus, a moral rebuke from 
whose lips would be received with shouts of laughter, 
tells Constantine with mock gravity that he has led 
a life fit only for a cook or a lady's-maid {otpOTtoioi 
Kai KOfxfAGorpia), and so the episode ends. We can- 
not doubt that there was quite sufficient of truth in 
these accusations to make the sharp-witted Greeks 
of the Empire, for whom Julian principally wrote, 
thoroughly enjoy his biting sarcasms. 

But we must be careful not to push too far any 
argument based upon this lampoon of Julian or 



3o6 Constantine 

upon the obvious bias of Zosimus. They disclose 
to us, undoubtedly, the least worthy side of Con- 
stantine's character, viz., a tendency to effeminacy 
and luxury, and it is morally certain that no one 
who had given way to his worst passions, as Con- 
stantine had done in Rome in the year 326, could 
ever be quite the same man again. He had on his 
conscience the assassination of his son and wife. 
These were but two out of a terribly long list 
of victims, which included his father-in-law, Max- 
imian ; his brother-in-law, Licinius, and Licinius's 
young son, Licinianus; another brother-in-law, the 
Caesar Bassus ; and many more besides. Some fell 
for reasons of State — " it is only the winner," as 
Marcus Antonius had said three centuries before, 
" who sees length of days " — but there was also the 
memory, even in the case of some of these, of 
broken promises and ill-kept faith. Constantine's 
Christianity was not of the kind which permeates 
a man's every action and influences his entire life; 
or, if that be claimed for him, it must at least be 
admitted that there were periods in his career when 
he suffered most desperate lapses from grace. 

On the whole perhaps the general statement of 
Eutropius, which we have already quoted, that Con- 
stantine degenerated somewhat {aliquantiim mutavit) 
as he grew older, fairly meets the case. It is worth 
while, indeed, to quote the reasoned estimate which 
this excellent epitomist gives of the Emperor's 
character. He says * : 

" At the opening of his reign Constantine was a man 

* Eutropius, X., 7. 



Constantine's Death and Character zoj 

who challenged comparison with the best of Princes; at 
its close he merited comparison with those of average 
merit and demerit. Both mentally and physically his 
good points were beyond computation and conspicuous 
to all. He was passionately set on winning military 
glory; and in his campaigns good fortune attended 
him, though not more than his zealous industry de- 
served. ... He was devoted to the arts of peace 
and to the humanities, and he sought to win from all 
men their sincere affection by his generosity and his 
tractability, never losing an opportunity of enriching 
his friends and adding to their dignity. 

This estimate agrees in its main particulars with 
that of Aurelius Victor, who, after speaking of his 
wonderful good luck in war {mira hellorum felicitate) 
and his avidity for praise, eulogises his exceptional 
versatility {commodissimus rebus multis), his zeal 
for literature and the arts, and the patient ear 
which he was always ready to lend to any provin- 
cial deputation or complaint. 

We have spoken of a marked degeneracy observ- 
able in Constantine as his life drew to a close. 
Perhaps the clearest proof of this is to be found 
in a momentous step taken by him in 335, when 
he divided the sovereignty of the world among his 
heirs. Such a partition meant the stultification of his 
political career, for he thus destroyed at a blow the 
political unity which he had so laboriously restored 
out of the wreck of the system of Diocletian. 

Eusebius gives us the truth in a single sentence 
when he says that Constantine treated the Empire 
for the purposes of this division as though he 



3o8 Constantine 

were apportioning his private patrimony among 
members of his own family.* He was much more 
concerned to make handsome provision for his sons 
and nephews than to secure the peace and well- 
being of his subjects. Crispus had now been dead 
nine years, and the three sons of Constantine and 
Fausta were still young, the eldest being only just 
twenty-one. Eusebius tells us how carefully they 
had been trained. They had been instructed in 
all martial exercises, and special professors had 
been engaged to make them proficient in poHtical 
affairs and a knowledge of the laws. Their religious 
education had been personally supervised by their 
father, who zealously sowed *' the seeds of godly 
reverence " and impressed upon them that " a know- 
ledge of God, who is the king of all things, and 
true piety were more deserving of honour than 
riches or even than sovereignty itself." Admirable 
precepts and Eusebius declares again and again 
that this " Trinity of Princes " — so he calls them 
in one place — were models of deportment, modesty, 
and piety. Unfortunately, we know how emphat- 
ically their future careers belied their early promise 
and the eulogies of the Bishop of Caesarea. We do 
not doubt his statement that ^Constantine spared no 
effort to educate them aright, but it was most unfor- 
tunate that the remarkable success of their father's 
political career bore testimony rather to the efificacy 
of ambition without scruple than of " godly rever- 
ence and true piety." 

* oia riva. narpcoav ov6iav vol? avtov KXrjpoSorwv cpiX- 

TOCVOli. 



Constantine's Death and Character 309 

In this new partition of the Empire the Caesar- 
ship of the West, including Gaul, Britain, and Spain, 
fell to Constantine, the eldest of the three princes. 
To the second, Constantius, were assigned the rich 
provinces of the East, including the seaboard pro- 
vinces of Asia Minor, together with Syria and Egypt. 
Constans, the youngest, received as his share Italy, 
Illyria, and Africa. But there was still a goodly 
heritage left over, sufficient to make a handsome 
dowry for a favourite daughter. This was Constan- 
tina, eldest of the three daughters of Constantine 
and Fausta, and she had been married to her 
half-cousin, Annibalianus, whose father had been 
the second son of Constantius Chlorus and Theo- 
dora. To support worthily the dignity of his new 
position as son-in-law of Constantine, the new title 
of Nobilissimus was created in his honour, and a 
kingdom was made for him out of the provinces of 
Pontus, Cappadocia, and Lesser Armenia. Gibbon 
expresses surprise that Annibahanus, '' of the whole 
series of Roman Princes in any age of the Empire," 
should have been the only one to bear the name of 
Rex, and says that he can scarcely admit its ac- 
curacy even on the joint authority of Imperial med- 
als and contemporary writers. The explanation is 
surely to be found in the fact that Pontus, Cap- 
padocia, and Lesser Armenia had for centuries 
been accustomed to be ruled by a king and that, 
in creating a new kingdom, Constantine simply 
retained the title which would be most familiar 
to the subjects over whom Annibalianus was to 
rule. Annibalianus was himself a second son: his 



3IO Constantine 

elder brother, Dalmatius, was raised to the full title 
of Caesar and given command over the important 
provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, with Greece 
thrown in as a make-weight. The position was a 
very important one, for it fell to the Caesar of 
Thrace to guard the frontier chiefly threatened by 
the Goths, and we may suppose, therefore, with 
some probability that Dalmatius — who had been 
consul in 333 — had given proof of military talent. 

But to what extent, we may ask, was this a real 
partition ? In what sense were the Caesars inde- 
pendent of Constantine himself? Eusebius ex- 
pressly tells us* that each was provided with a 
complete establishment — ^aaikinr} Ttapaanev?], — 
with a court, that is to say, which was in every 
respect a miniature copy of the court at Constan- 
tinople. Each had his own legions, bodyguards, 
and auxiliaries, with their due complement of offi- 
cers chosen, we are told, by the Emperor for their 
knowledge of war and for their loyalty to their 
chiefs. It is hardly to be supposed that Constan- 
tine contemplated retirement : had he done so, he 
would have retired at the Tricennalia which he 
celebrated in the following year. In all probability, 
he did not intend that his supreme power should 
be one whit abated, though he was content to dele- 
gate his administrative authority to others acting 
under his strict supervision. His Caesars, in short, 
were really viceroys, though it is difficult to under- 
stand how such an arrangement can have worked 
harmoniously without some modification of the pow- 

* De Vita Const., iv., 51. 



Constantine's Death and Character 311 

ers of the four Praetorian praefects. But the division, 
as we have said, was not made in the interests of the 
Empire but in the interests of the Princes of the 
Blood, and it was one which could not possibly 
endure. As soon as Constantine died chaos and 
civil war were bound to ensue, and, as a matter of 
fact, did ensue. For there is no evidence that the 
Emperor made any arrangement as to who should 
succeed him on the throne. Constantinople itself 
lay in the territory assigned to Dalmatius; yet it 
was entirely unreasonable to suppose that the three 
sons of Constantine would acquiesce in leaving the 
capital to the quiet possession of their cousin. The 
division of the Empire, therefore, in 335 carried 
with it the early ripening seeds of civil war, blood- 
shed, and anarchy. If the system of Diocletian 
had proved unworkable, because it took no account 
of the natural desire of a son to succeed his father, 
the system of Constantine was even worse. It was 
absolutely certain that of the five heirs the three 
sons would combine against the two cousins, whom 
they would regard as interlopers, and that then the 
three brothers would quarrel among themselves, 
until only one was left. 

Constantine's reign was now hastening to its end. 
In 336 he celebrated his Tricennalia, and his cour- 
tiers would not fail to remind him that he alone, of 
all the successors of the great Augustus, had borne 
such length of days in his left hand and such glory 
in his right. The principal event of the festival 
seems to have been the dedication at Jerusalem of 
the sumptuous Church of the Anastasis on the site 



312 Constantine 

of the Holy Sepulchre. As we have seen in an- 
other chapter, the year was one of acute religious 
contention, rendered specially memorable by the 
awe-inspiring death of Arius, and the Emperor's 
last months of life must have been em.bittered by 
the thought that, despite all his efforts, religious 
unity within the Church seemed as far as ever from 
realisation. 

Eusebius tells us * that Constantine sought to find 
a remedy in the hot baths of Constantinople for the 
disorder from which he was suffering, and then, 
obtaining no relief, crossed the straits to Drepanum, 
or Helenopolis, as it was now called in honour of the 
Emperor's mother. There his malady grew worse 
and special prayers were offered for his recovery in 
the Church of Lucian the Martyr. 

But Constantine had a presentiment that the end 
was near, and he determined, therefore, that the 
time had come for him formally to become a 
member of the Christian Church and so obtain 
purification for the sins which he had committed in 
life. Falling upon his knees on the church floor, 
he confessed his sins, received the laying-on of 
hands, and so became a catechumen. Then, travel- 
ling down to the palace which stood on the outskirts 
of Nicomedia, the now dying Emperor summoned 
to his side a number of bishops and made confession 
of his faith. He told them that the moment for 
which he had thirsted and prayed had come at last, 
the moment when he might receive " the seal which 
confers immortality." He had hoped, he said, to 

* De Vita Const., iv., 6i. 



Constantine's Death and Character 313 

be baptised in Jordan : God had willed otherwise 
and he bowed to His will. But he assured them 
that his resolve was not due to any passing whim. 
He had fully made up his mind, that even if recovery 
were vouchsafed him, he would set before himself 
such rules and conduct of life * as would be becom- 
ing to God. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia then performed the rite 
of baptism. Constantine, clad in garments of 
shining white, lay upon a white bed, and, down 
to the hour of his death, refused to touch the 
purple robes he had worn in life. " Now," he 
exclaimed, with all the fervour of a neophyte, " now 
I know in very truth that I am blessed ; now I have 
confidence that I am a partaker of divine light." 
When his captains came to take leave of him and 
wept at the thought of losing their chief, he told 
them that he had the assurance of having been found 
worthy of eternal life, and that his only anxiety was 
to hasten his journey to God. He wished to die, 
and the wish was soon granted. Constantine drew 
his last breath on May 22d, 337. 

They bore the body, enclosed in a golden coffin 
covered by a purple pall, from Nicomedia to Con- 
stantinople and placed it with great pomp in the 
throne room of the palace. There the dead Em- 
peror lay in state, guarded night and day by the 
chief officers of the army and the highest officials of 
the court. Even in death, says Eusebius, he still 
was king, and all the elaborate bowings and genu- 
flexions with which men had entered his presence 

* Bsd/xoVi T/Srj l^iov QecS STtovrai ijj.avvcS diarerd^o^ai. 



314 Constantine 

in his lifetime were still observed. Constantine's 
illness had declared itself very suddenly, and had 
run its course so quickly that not one of his sons 
was at hand to take up the reins of administration. 
It looks too as though the Emperor had made no 
preparations with a view to his demise, but had left 
his three sons and his two nephews to determine 
among themselves who should be supreme. His 
second son, Constantius, was the first to arrive 
at Constantinople, and it was he who arranged 
the obsequies of his father. We are told that the 
Roman Senate earnestly desired the body of the 
Emperor to be laid to rest in the old capital and 
sent deputations begging that this last honour 
should not be denied them. But it had been Con- 
stantine's express wish to be buried in the Church 
of the Apostles, at Constantinople, where he had 
prepared a splendid sarcophagus, and there can have 
been no hesitation as to the choice of a resting-place. 
The body was borne with an imposing military 
pageant to the Church. Constantius was the chief 
mourner, but he and his soldiers quitted the 
sanctuary before a word of the burial-service was 
spoken or a note of music sounded. He was not a 
baptised Christian and, therefore, could not be 
present as the last rites were performed. The great 
Emperor was buried by the bishops, priests, and 
Christian populace, whose zealous champion he had 
been and to whose undying gratitude he had estab- 
lished an overwhelming title. Coins were struck 
bearing on one side the figure of the Emperor with 
his head closely veiled, and, on the other, represent- 




t o 



O I- 



Constan tine's Death and Character 3^5 

ing Constantine seated in a four-horse chariot, and 
being drawn up to heaven by a celestial hand 
stretched out to him from the clouds. It was a 
device which could offend neither Christian nor 
pagan. To the former it would recall the trium- 
phant ascent of Elijah ; the latter would regard it 
as the token of a natural apotheosis. The hand 
might equally well be the hand of God or of 
Jupiter. 

Such is the story of the Emperor's baptism, 
death, and burial as recounted by Eusebius. There 
is, however, one important detail to be added and 
one important question to be asked. Constantine 
was baptised by an Arian bishop. To the Athana- 
sian party and to the ecclesiastical historians of 
succeeding ages this was a lamentable circumstance 
which greatly exercised and troubled their minds. 
It sorely grieved them to think that their patron 
Constantine should have been admitted into the 
communion of the faithful by the dangerous heretic 
who had been the bitterest enemy of their idol, 
Athanasius. But with a forbearance to which they 
were usually strangers, they agreed to pass over the 
episode in comparative silence and remember not 
the shortcomings but the virtues of the first Christian 
Emperor. 

It still remains to be asked why Constantine did 
not formally enter the Church until he was on his 
death-bed. There had been no lukewarmness about 
his Christianity. He was not one to be afflicted 
with doubts. There had never been any danger of 
his reverting to paganism. In the last few years, 



3i6 Constantine 

indeed, he had been distracted by the clamour of 
Arians and Athanasians, and his was a mind upon 
which a clever and acute ecclesiastic, who enjoyed 
his confidence, could play at will. When Hosius of 
Cordova stood by his side he was the champion of 
the Catholic party ; when Hosius fell from favour 
and Eusebius of Nicomedia took his place Constan- 
tine strongly inclined to the Arian side. But in 
neither case was there any doubt of his Christianity. 
Why then did he not become a member of the 
Church? Was it because the rite of baptism 
conferred immediate forgiveness of sin and therefore 
a death-bed baptism infallibly opened the gate of 
Heaven? By putting off entrance into the Church 
until the hour had come after which it was hardly 
possible to commit sin, did Constantine count upon 
making sure of eternal happiness ? Such is the 
motive assigned by some historians. It certainly is 
not a lofty one. Yet the idea may Jj^^erjj, well have 
presented itself to Constantine's mind and the 
impression left by Eusebius's narrative is that Con- 
stantine only determined to receive the rite because 
he felt his end to be near and dared not put it off 
any longer. On the other hand, Constantine's 
statement that his ambition had been to be baptised 
in Jordan is rather against this theory. Possibly, 
too, he was to some degree influenced by the wish 
not to alienate entirely the support of his pagan 
subjects, especially the more fanatical of them, who 
would bitterly resent their Chief Pontiff becoming a 
baptised member of the Christian Church. No one 
can say, but we shall be the better able to form an 



Constantine's Death and Character 317 

opinion if we look a little more closely at the 
religious life and policy of Constantine. 

Eusebius represents the daily life of the Emperor 
on its religious side to have been almost that of a 
monk or of a saint. Every day, we are told, he used 
to retire for private meditation and prayer. He de- 
lighted in delivering sermons and addresses to his 
courtiers, Bible in hand. He would begin by expos- 
ing the errors of polytheism and by proving the 
superstition of the Gentiles to be a mere fraud and 
cloak for impiety, and would then expound his 
theory of the sole sovereignty of God, the workings 
of Providence, and the sureness of the Judgment, in- 
variably concluding with his favourite moral that 
God had given to him the sovereignty of the whole 
world. Such a discourse could not possibly be short, 
but Constantine liked his religious exercises long. 
He once insisted on standing throughout the reading 
of an elaborate disquisition by Eusebius himself, 
who evidently tired of the exertion and begged that 
the Emperor would not fatigue himself further. But 
Constantine was resolved to hear it out, and the cour- 
tier Bishop, while profoundly flattered at the com- 
pliment, ruefully admitted that the thesis was very 
long. Probably the courtiers found it interminable. 
But it was their duty to listen, applaud, and appear 
duly impressed when, for example, Constantine 
traced on the ground the dimensions of a coffin, 
and solemnly warned them against covetousness by 
the reminder that six feet of earth was the utmost 
they could hope to enjoy after death, and they might 
not even get so much as that if burial were refused 



3i8 Constantine 

them or they were burnt or lost at sea. No one ever 
accused Constantine of covetousness ; his failing was 
reckless extravagance, and we fear he is to be num- 
bered among those who 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

Constantine ordered all the bishops throughout 
the Empire to offer up daily prayers for him; he had 
coins struck at the Imperial mints which depicted 
him with eyes uplifted to heaven, and he had pictures 
of himself — probably in mosaic — set over the gates 
of his palaces, in which he was seen standing erect 
with hands in the attitude of prayer. For our part 
we like better the chapters in which Eusebius de- 
scribes the Emperor's open-handed generosity to the 
poor and needy and to the orphan and the widow, 
extols the kind-heartedness which was carried to such 
a length as to raise the question whether such cle- 
mency was not excessive, and claims that his most 
distinctive and characteristic virtue was the love of 
his fellow-men, his q)iK.avdpw7na, a virtue which the 
typical Roman rarely developed to his full capacity. 

Constantine's whole career testified to the zeal 
with which he had embraced Christianity. We have 
seen the enthusiasm with which he set to work to 
build churches throughout the Empire. In Rome 
there are ascribed to him the Church of Saint Agnes, 
the Church of St. John Lateran, and another which 
stood on part of the site of the present St. Peter's. 
In Constantinople he built the Churches of the 
Apostles, St. Eirene, and St. Sophia. In Jerusalem 



Constantine's Death and Character 319 

he built the Church of the Anastasis as the crowning 
memorial of his thirty years of reign, and in Antioch, 
Nicomedia, and a score of other cities his purse was 
constantly at the service of the Faith. The building of 
churches was a passion with him, and he also took care 
that they were provided with the Scriptures. Euse- 
bius* gives the. text of a letter written to him by the 
Emperor ordering fifty copies of the Scriptures to be 
executed without delay. Constantine published an 
edict commanding that the Lord's day should be 
scrupulously observed and honoured, and that every 
facility should be given to Christian soldiers to enable 
them to attend the services. Even his pagan soldiers 
were to keep that day holy by offering up a prayer 
to the " King of Heaven," in which they addressed 
him as the " Giver of Victory, their Preserver, Guard- 
ian, and Helper." 

" Thee alone we know to be God ; Thee alone we 
recognise as King ; Thee we invoke as Helper ; from 
Thee we have gained our victories ; through Thee we 
are superior to our enemies. To Thee we give thanks 
for the benefits we now enjoy ; from Thee we look for 
our benefits to come. All of us are Thy suppliants: and 
we pray that Thou wilt guard our King Constantine 
and his pious sons long, long to reign over us in safety 
and victory." 

No pagan soldier could be offended at being 
required to offer this prayer to the King of Heaven. 
If he were sincere in his faith he would hope that 
it might reach the throne of Jupiter ; Constantine 



* De Vita Const., iv., 36. 



320 Constantine 

evidently expected that, as it was addressed to the 
King of Heaven, it would be intercepted in mid- 
course and wafted to the throne of God. He was 
at any rate determined that no soldier of his, whether 
pagan or Christian, should wear on his shield any other 
sign than that of the Cross — " the salutary trophy." 
But what was Constantine's policy towards the 
old rehgion ? Let us look first at the explicit state- 
ments of Eusebius. He says in one place* that 
" the doors of idolatry were shut throughout the 
whole Roman Empire for both laity and military 
alike, and every form of sacrifice was forbidden." 
In another passage f he says that edicts were is- 
sued " forbidding sacrifice to idols, the mischievous 
practice of divination, the putting up of wooden 
images, the observance of secret rites, and the pollu- 
tion of cities by the sanguinary combats of gladia- 
tors." In a third passage :{: he speaks of Constantine's 
having " utterly destroyed polytheism in all its 
variety of fooHshness." Eusebius also tells us that 
Constantine was careful to choose, whenever pos- 
sible, Christian governors for the provinces, while he 
forbade those with Hellenistic, z. ^., pagan, sympa- 
thies to offer sacrifice. He also ordered that the 
synodal decrees of bishops should not be interfered 
with by the provincial authorities, for, adds Eusebius, 
he considered a priest of God to be more entitled 
to honour than a judge. The same authority ex- 
pressly states § that Constantinople was kept per- 

'^ De Vita Const., iv., 23. \ Ibid., c. 25. 

\fiovov TE Ttddav TtoXvdeov itXdvrjv HaQeXovroi {ibid,, c. 
75). %Il>i(i., c, 27. 



Constantine's Death and Character 321 

fectly free from idolatry in every shape and form, 
and was never polluted with the blood or smoke 
of sacrifice, and the general impression which he 
leaves upon the reader's mind is that paganism was 
proscribed and the practice of the old religion de- 
clared to be a crime. 

It is evident, however, that this was not the case. 
Eusebius, as usual, supplies the corrective to his 
own exaggerations. He quotes, for example, in full 
the text of an edict which Constantine addressed to 
the governors of the East, wherein it is unequi- 
vocally laid down that complete religious freedom is 
to be the standing rule throughout the Empire. 
He beseeches all his subjects to become Christians, 
but he will not compel them. " Let no one inter- 
fere with his neighbour. Let each man do what his 
soul desires." * This edict was issued after the over- 
throw of Licinius and is remarkable chiefly for the 
fervent profession of Christianity which the Emperor 
makes in it. " I am most firmly convinced," he 
says, "that I owe to the most High God my whole 
soul, my every breath, my most secret and inmost 
thoughts." And then he continues: "Therefore, I 
have dedicated my soul to Thee, in pure blend of 
love and fear.f For I truly adore Thy name, while 
I reverence Thy power which Thou hast manifested 
by many proofs and made my faith the surer." 

But did Constantine maintain this attitude of strict 



* /urjdEii rdv Etepov Tiapevox^sitoo : sKadroi oitsp t] ipvxTf 
fSovXerai rovro xai TtpazTETca {De Vita Const., ii. , 56). 

\ 81a. ravrd rot dviBrjud dot rrjv sjuavrov ipvxv^ epoovz 
Hal (p6/3a) naSapmi dvaupaBEldav {ibid., c. 55). 



322 Constantine 

neutrality, only tempered by ardent prayer that his 
pagan subjects might be brought to a knowledge of 
the truth ? In its entirety he certainly did not, and 
it was impossible that so zealous a convert should. 
When the smiles of Imperial favour were withdrawn 
from the old religion it was inevitable that the Im- 
perial arm which protected it should grow slack in 
its defence. Yet, throughout his reign Constantine 
never forgot that the majority of his subjects were 
still pagan, despite the hosts of conversions which 
followed his own, and he took care not to press too 
hardly upon them and not to goad the more fanatical 
upholders of the old regime to the recklessness of 
despair. We have seen how the Emperor refused 
to witness the procession of the Knights in Rome 
at the time of his Vicennalia. He also forbade his 
statue or image to be placed in a pagan temple. 
But he, nevertheless, retained through life the ofifiice 
of Pontifex Maximus, and as such continued to be 
supreme head of the pagan religion. Nor was it 
until the time of Gratian fifty years afterwards that 
this title — no doubt in deference to the repeated 
representations of the bishops — was dropped by 
the Christian Emperors. Some historians have ex- 
pressed surprise that so enthusiastic a convert to 
Christianity should have been willing to remain 
Chief Pontiff ; a few have even been genuinely con- 
cerned to explain and excuse his conduct. But Con- 
stantine was statesman as well as convert. If he 
had resigned the Chief Pontificate that office might 
conceivably have passed into dangerous hands. By 
holding it as an absolute sinecure, by never per- 



Constantine's Death and Character 323 

forming its ceremonial duties or wearing its dis- 
tinctive robes, Constantine did far more to destroy 
its influence than if he had resigned it. Imperial 
titles, moreover, sometimes signify very little. 
Every one knows the gibe of Voltaire at the Holy 
Roman Empire which was neither holy, nor Roman, 
nor an Empire. For centuries after the loss of 
Calais the lilies of France were quartered on the 
Royal arms of Great Britain, and the coins of our 
Protestant monarch still bear the F. D. bestowed 
by the Pope upon the eighth Henry. The King of 
Portugal is still Lord of All the Indies. It is not 
titles that count but actions. Whether or not Con- 
stantine's ecclesiastical friends were troubled by his 
retaining the title, we may be sure the question 
never troubled the Emperor himself, as the title 
of " Supreme Head of the English Church " is 
said to have troubled the scrupulous conscience of 
James II. after he became a convert to Rome. But 
in the latter case the practical advantages of reten- 
tion outweighed the shock to consistency in the 
eyes of those whom James consulted. 

Constantine helped forward the conversion of the 
Empire with true statesmanlike caution, desirous 
above all things to avoid political disturbance. He 
abolished outright, we are told, certain of the more 
offensive and degraded pagan rites, to which it was 
possible to take grave exception on the score of 
decency and morality. For example, some Phoeni- 
cian temples at Heliopolis and Aphaca, where the 
worship of Venus was attended with shameless 
prostitution, were ordered to be pulled down. The 



324 Constantine 

same fate befell a temple of .^sculapius at yEgaeae, 
and a college of effeminate priests in Egypt, asso- 
ciated with the worship of the Nile, was disbanded 
and its members, according to Eusebius, were all put 
to death. But these are the only specific examples 
of repression instanced by Eusebius,* and they 
assuredly do not suggest any general proscription of 
paganism. Eusebius is notoriously untrustworthy. 
He distinctly says that Constantine determined to 
purify his new capital of all idolatry, so that there 
should not be found within its walls either statue or 
altar of any false god. Yet we know that the phi- 
losopher Sopater was present at the ceremony of 
dedication and that he enjoyed for a time the high 
favour of the Emperor, though he was subsequently 
put to death on the accusation of the praefect Ab- 
lavius, who charged him with delaying the arrival 
of the Egyptian corn ships by his magical arts. We 
know too that there were temples of Cybele and 
Fortuna in the city, and Zosimus expressly declares 
that the Emperor constructed a temple and precincts 
for the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. At Rome the 
temple of Concord was rebuilt towards the close of 
his reign, and inscriptions shew that the consuls of 
the year still dedicated without hindrance altars to 
their favourite deities. The famous altar of Victory, 
around which a furious controversy was to rage in 
the reign of Valentinian, at the close of the fourth 
century, still stood in the Roman Curia, and in the 
two great centres of Eastern Christianity, Antioch 
and Alexandria, the worship of Apollo and Serapis 

* De Vita Const., iii., 48, iv., 25. 



4' 
1^ 




\ ..--^^ 



COPPER DENARIUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 
SHOWING THE LABARUM. 





DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. 
WITH THE LABARUM. 





DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF DIOCLETIAN 



3 ll 




SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIAN. 



Constantine's Death and Character 325 

continued without intermission in their world- 
renowned temples. 

No doubt in districts where the Christians were 
in a marked majority and paganism found only 
lukewarm adherents, there was occasional violence 
shewn to the old temples and statues, especially 
if the governor happened to be a Christian. Orna- 
ments might be stolen, treasures ransacked, and prob- 
ably few questions were asked. Christianity had 
been persecuted so long and so savagely that when 
the day of revenge came, the temptation was too 
strong for human frailty to resist, and as long as there 
was no serious civil disturbance the authorities prob- 
ably made light of the occurrence. Paganism was a 
dying creed ; where it had to struggle hard to keep 
its head above water, the end was not long delayed. 
The case would be different where the temples were 
possessed of great wealth and where there were 
powerful priestly corporations to defend their 
vested interests. There can be no greater mistake 
than to suppose that Constantine declared war on 
the old religion. He did nothing of the kind. 
When he showered favours on the Christian clergy, 
what he did in effect was merely to raise them to 
the same status as that already enjoyed by the 
pagan priesthood. He did not take away the privi- 
leges of the colleges : and inscriptions have been 
found which tend to shew that he allowed new col- 
leges to be founded which bore his name. In short, 
to the old State-established and State-endowed re- 
ligion he added another, that of Christianity, reserv- 
ing his special favour for the new but not actively 



326 Constantine 

repressing the ancient. He had hoped to convert 
the world by his own example ; but, though he failed 
in this, he never contemplated a resort to violence. 
His religious policy, throughout his reign, may fairly 
be described as one of toleration. That is what 
Symmachus meant when he said, half a century 
later, that Constantine had belonged to both re- 
ligions. 

There was one exception to this rule. Constan- 
tine came down with a heavy hand on secret divina- 
tion and the practice of magic and the black arts. 
But other Emperors before him had done the same. 
Emperors whose loyalty to the Roman religion had 
never been questioned — for these mysterious rites 
formed no part of the established worship. They 
might be employed to the harm of the State ; they 
might portend danger to the Emperor's life and 
throne. It was not for private individuals to experi- 
ment with and let loose the powers of darkness, for, as 
a rule, beneficent deities had no part or lot in these 
dark mysteries. As a Christian, Constantine would 
have a double satisfaction in issuing edicts against 
the wonder-working charlatans who abounded in the 
great cities ; but the point is that in attacking 
them he was not technically attacking the old State 
religion. The public and ofificial haruspices were 
not interfered with ; if any devout pagan still de- 
sired to consult an oracle, no obstacle was placed in 
his way ; and, as a tribute to the universal supersti- 
tion of the age from which he himself was not free, 
even private divination was permitted when the ob- 
ject was a good one, such as the restoration of a sick 



Constantine's Death and Character 327 

person to health or the protection of crops against 
hail. But it is evident that Constantine and his 
bishops were far more apprehensive of evil from the 
unchaining of the Devil than expectant of good from 
the favour of the ministers of grace. They were 
terrified of the one : they indulged but a pious hope 
of the other. Nor was the Emperor successful in 
stamping out the private thaumaturgist. Human 
nature was too strong for him. Sileat perpetuo divin- 
andi curiositas, ordered one of his successors in 
358. But the curiosity to divine the future con- 
tinued to defy both civil and ecclesiastical law. 

A much bolder act, however, than the closing of a 
few temples on the score of public decency or the 
forbidding of private divination was the edict of 325, 
in which Constantine ordered the abolition of the 
gladiatorial shows. " Such blood-stained specta- 
cles," he said, "in the midst of civil peace and do- 
mestic quiet are repugnant to our taste." He 
ordained, therefore, that in future all criminals who 
were usually condemned to be gladiators should be 
sent to work in the mines, that they might expiate 
their offences without shedding of blood. But it 
was one thing to issue an edict and another to 
enforce it. Whether Constantine insisted on the 
observance of this particular edict, we cannot say, 
but his successors certainly did not, for the glad- 
iatorial spectacles at Rome were in full swing in the 
days of Symmachus, who ransacked the world for 
good swordsmen and strange animals. The "cruenta 
spectactila," as Constantine called them, were not 
finally abolished until the reign of Honorius. 



328 Constantine 

To sum up. The only reasonable view to take of 
the religious character of Constantine is that he was 
a sincere and convinced Christian. This is borne 
out alike by his passionate professions of faith and 
by the clear testimony of his actions. There are, it 
is true, many historians who hold that he was really 
indifferent to religion, and others who credit him 
with an easy capacity for finding truth in all religions 
alike. Professor Bury, for example, says that " the 
evidence seems to shew that his religion was a 
syncretistic monotheism ; that he was content to see 
the deity in the Sun, in Mithras, or in the God of 
the Hebrews." Such a description would suit the 
character of Constantius Chlorus perfectly, and 
it may very well have suited Constantine himself 
before the overthrow of Maxentius. There is a 
passage in the Ninth Panegyric which seems to have 
been uttered by one holding these views, and it is 
worth quotation, for it is an invocation to the su- 
preme deity to bless the Emperor Constantine. It 
runs as follows: 

Wherefore we pray and beseech thee to keep our 
Prince safe for all eternity, thee, the supreme creator of 
all things, whose names are as manifold as it has been 
thy will that nations should have tongues. We cannot 
tell by what title it is thy pleasure that we should address 
thee, whether thou art a divine force and mind permeat- 
ing the whole world and mingled with all the elements, 
and moving of thine own motive power without impulse 
from without, or whether thou art some Power above all 
Heaven who lookest down upon this thy handiwork from 
some loftier arch of Nature. 



Constantine's Death and Character 329 

Such a deity may have satisfied the philosophers, 
but it certainly was not the deity whom Constantine 
worshipped throughout his reign. Had he been in- 
different to religion, or indifferent to Christianity, 
had he even been anxious only to hold the balance 
between the rival creeds, he would never have sur- 
rounded himself by episcopal advisers ; never have 
set his hand to such edicts as those we have quoted ; 
never have abolished the use of the cross for the 
execution of criminals or have forbidden Jews to 
own Christian slaves ; never have called the whole 
world time and again to witness his zeal for Christ ; 
never have lavished the resources of the Empire 
upon the building of sumptuous churches ; never 
have listened with such extraordinary forbearance 
to the wranglings of the Donatists and the subtleties 
of Arians and Athanasians ; never have summoned 
or presided at the Council of Nicaea ; and certainly 
never have made the welfare of non-Roman Christ- 
ians the subject of entreaty with the King of Persia. 
Constantine was prone to superstition. He was 
grossly material in his religious views, and his own 
worldly success remained still in his eyes the crown- 
ing proof of the Christian verities. But the sincerity 
of his convictions is none the less apparent, and 
even the atrocious crimes with which he sullied his 
fair fame cannot rob him of the name of Christian. 
It was a name, says St. Augustine,* in which he 
manifestly delighted to boast, mindful of the hope 
which he reposed in Christ {Plane Christiana nomine 
gloriosus, onemor spei quani gerebat in Christd). 

'^Contra Lit. Petil., ii., 205. 




CHAPTER XVI 

THE EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY 

THE reorganisation of the Empire, begun by Dio- 
cletian, had been continued along the same 
lines by Constantine the Great. There were still 
further developments under their successors, but 
these two were the real founders of the Imperial 
system which was to subsist in the eastern half of 
the Empire for more than eleven hundred years. 
In other words, Diocletian and Constantine gave the 
Empire, if not a new lease of life, at least a new im- 
petus and a new start, and we may here present a 
brief sketch of the reforms which they introduced 
into practically every sphere of governmental activity. 
We have already seen how profoundly changed 
was the position of the Emperor himself. He was 
no longer essentially a Roman Imperator, a supreme 
War-Lord, a soldier Chief of State. He had become 
a King in a palace, secluded from the gaze of the 
vulgar, surrounded with all the attributes and orna- 
ments of an eastern monarch, and robed in gorgeous 
vestments stiff with gold and jewels. Men were 
taught to speak and think of him as superhuman 
and sacrosanct, to approach him with genuflexion 

330 



The Empire and Christianity 33 1 

and adoration, to regard every office, however 
menial, attached to his person, as sacred. In speak- 
ing of the Emperor language was strained to the 
pitch of the ridiculous ; flattery became so grotesque 
that it must have ceased to flatter. When Nazarius, 
for example, speaks of the Emperor's heart as " the 
stupendous shrine of mighty virtues " {ingentium 
virtutmn stiipenda penetralia), and such language as 
this became the recognised mode of addressing the 
reigning Sovereign, we see how far we have travelled 
not only from Republican simplicity, but even from 
the times of Domitian. The Emperor, in brief, was 
absolute monarch, autocrat of the entire Roman 
world, and his will and nod were law. 

He stood at the head of a hierarchy of court and 
administrative officials, most minutely organised 
from the highest to the lowest. For purposes of 
Imperial administration, those next to the throne 
were the four Praetorian praefects, each one supreme, 
under the Emperor, in his quarter of the world. 
The Empire had been divided by Diocletian into 
twelve dioceses and these again into ninety-six 
provinces; Constantine accepted this division but 
apportioned the twelve dioceses into four praefect- 
ures, those of the Orient, Illyria, Italy, and Gaul. 
The four Praetorian praefects stood in relation to the 
Emperor — so Eusebius tells us — as God the Son 
stood in relation to God the Father. They wore — 
though not perhaps in the days of Constantine — 
robes of purple reaching to the knee ; they rode in 
lofty chariots, and among the insignia of their office 
were a colossal silver inkstand and gold pen-cases of 



332 Constantine 

a hundred pounds in weight. Their functions were 
practically unlimited, save for the all-important excep- 
tion that they exercised no military command. They 
had an exchequer of their own, through which passed 
all the Imperial taxes from their provinces ; they had 
absolute control over the vicars of the dioceses be- 
neath them, whom, if they did not actually appoint 
they at least recommended for appointment to the 
Emperor. In their own prsefectures they formed 
the final court of appeal, and Constantine expressly 
enacted that there should be no appeal from them 
to the throne. They even had a limited power of 
issuing edicts. Thus in all administrative, financial, 
and judicial matters the four Praetorian praefects were 
supreme, occupying a position very similar to that 
of the Viceroys of the great provinces of China, save 
that they had no control over the troops within their 
territories. 

Below these four praefects came the vicars of the 
twelve dioceses of the Oriens, Pontica, Asiana, Thra- 
cia, Moesia, Pannonia, Britanniae, Galliae, Viennenses, 
Italia, Hispaniae, and Africa. Egypt continued to 
hold an unique position ; its governor was almost 
independent of the praefect of the Orient, and was 
always a direct nominee of the Emperor. Then, 
below the twelve vicars came the governors of the 
provinces, the number of which constantly tended 
to increase, but by further subdivision rather than 
by conquest of new territory. Various names were 
given to these governors ; they were rectores and cor- 
rectores in some provinces, prcEsides in many more, 
consulares in a few of the more important ones, such 





AUREUS OF CARAUSIUS. 




AUREUS OF ALLECTUS. 





SOLIDUS OF HELENA. 





SOLIDUS OF QALERIUS. 





SOLIDUS OF SEVERUS M. 



The Empire and Christianity 333 

as Africa and Italia. Each had his own entourage 
of minor officials, and the hierarchical principle was 
observed as rigidly on the lowest rungs of the ladder 
as on the topmost. Autocrats are obliged to rule 
through a bureaucracy, a broad-based pyramid of 
officialdom which usually weighs heavily upon the 
unfortunate taxpayer who has to support the entire 
structure. 

A similar hierarchy of officials prevailed in the 
palace and the court, from the grand chamberlain 
down through a host of Imperial secretaries to the 
head scullion. The tendency of each was to magnify 
his office into a department, and to be the master of 
a set of underlings. And it was the policy of Con- 
stantine, as it had been the policy of Augustus, to 
invent new offices in order to increase the number 
of officials who looked to the Emperor as their 
benefactor.* 

In the conduct of State affairs the Emperor was 
assisted by an Imperial council, known as the con- 
sistoriuin principis. It included the four Praetorian 
praefects of whom we have spoken ; the quaestor of 
the palace, a kind of general secretary of state ; the 
master of the offices (magister officiorufn), one of 
whose principal duties was to act as minister of police ; 
the grand chamberlain {prcspositus sacri cubiculi); 
two ministers of finance, and two ministers for war. 
One of the finance ministers was dignified with the 
title of count of the sacred largesses {comes sacrarum 
largitionum) ; the other was count of the private 

* £/S yap TO TtXEiovaZ Ttfidv 8iaq>6pov<i ETtevosi ^adiAsvi 
afy-di^De Vita Co7tst., iv., i). 



334 Constantine 

purse {comes reruin privatarnvi). The distinction 
was similar to the old one between the cerarium and 
>Li\Q. fiscus, between, that is to say, the State treasury 
and the Emperor's privy purse. One of the two 
ministers for war had supreme charge of the infantry 
of the Empire ; the other was responsible for the 
cavalry. Both also exercised j udicial functions and sat 
as a court of appeal in all military cases wherein the 
State was interested, either as plaintiff or defendant. 
There were still consuls in Rome, who continued 
to give their names to the year. All their political 
power had vanished, but their dignity remained un- 
impaired, though it was now derived not from the 
intrinsic importance of their office so much as from 
its extrinsic ornaments. To be consul had become 
the ambition not of the boldest but of the vainest. 
( In consulatu Jionos stJie labor e stiscipitu?'.) The prae- 
torship had similarly fallen, but it still entailed upon 
the holder the expensive and sometimes ruinous 
privilege of providing shows for the amusement of 
the Roman populace. The number of praetors had 
fallen to two in Constantine's day : he raised it to 
eight, in accordance with his general regardlessness 
of expense, so long as there was outward mag- 
nificence. It is doubtful whether, during the reign of 
Constantine, there were consuls and praetors in Con- 
stantinople. Certainly there was no urban praefect 
appointed in that city until twenty years after his 
death, and it seems probable that the Emperor did 
not set up in his new capital quite such a pedantically 
perfect imitation of the official machinery of Rome 
as has sometimes been supposed. His successors, 



The Empire and Christianity 335 

however, were not long in completing what he had 
begun. 

We pass to the senate and the senatorial order, 
with their various degrees of dignity, which Constan- 
tine and those who came after him delighted to 
elaborate. Every member of the senate was natur- 
ally a member of the senatorial order, but it by no 
means followed that every member of the order had 
a seat in the senate. The new senate of Constanti- 
nople, like its prototype at Rome, had little or no 
political power. It merely registered the decrees of 
the Emperor, and its function seems to have been 
one principally of dignity and ceremony. Member- 
ship of the senatorial order was a social distinction 
that might be held by a man living in any part of the 
Empire and was gained by virtue of having held 
office. The order was an aristocracy of officials and 
ex-officials, distinguished by resplendent titles, in- 
volving additional burdens in the way of taxation — 
the price of added dignity. A few of these titles are 
worth brief consideration. To the Emperor there 
were reserved the grandiloquent names of Your Ma- 
jesty, Your Eternity, Your Divinity. Members of 
the reigning house were Most Noble {Nobilissimi). 
To the members of the senate, including the officials 
of the very highest rank, viz., the consuls, proconsuls, 
and praefects, there was reserved the title of Most 
Distinguished {Clarissimi), while officers of lower 
rank, members of the senatorial order but not of the 
senate, were Most Perfect {Perfectissimi) and Egre- 
gious {Egregii), the former being of a higher class 
than the latter. Such was the order of precedence 



33^ Constantine 

in Constantine's reign, but there was a constant ten- 
dency for these honourable orders to expand, due, 
no doubt, entirely to the exigencies of the treasury. 
Thus the high rank of Clarissimi was bestowed on 
those who previously had been only Perfectissimi 
and Egregii, and two still higher orders of Illustres 
and Spectabiles were created for the old Claris- 
simi and Perfectissimi. The two topmost classes 
were thus given an upward step. 

Such was the new official aristocracy, while a rigid 
line of division, quite unknown to Republican and 
early Imperial Rome, was drawn between the civil and 
the military oflficers of the Empire. The military 
forces themselves were organised into two great di- 
visions, (i) the troops kept permanently upon the 
frontiers, and (2) the soldiers of the line. The first 
were known as Limitanei (Borderers) or Riparienses 
(Guardians of the Shore), the second name being 
specially applied to the soldiers of the Rhine and 
the Danube. All these troops were stationed in per- 
manent camps and forts, which often developed into 
townships, and it was a rare thing for a legion to be 
moved to another quarter of the Empire. Boys 
grew up and followed their fathers in the profession 
of arms in the same camp, and were themselves suc- 
ceeded by their own sons. The term of service was 
twenty-four years, and these Litnitanei were not only 
soldiers but tillers of the soil, playing a part precisely 
similar to the soldier colonists of Russia in her Far 
Eastern provinces. The soldiers of the line {Numeri), 
on the other hand, served for the shorter period of 
twenty years. They included the Palatini, — practi- 



The Empire and Christianity 337 

cally the successors of the old Praetorian Guard, — 
the crack corps of the army, who were divided into 
regiments bearing such titles as Scholar es, Protectores, 
and Domestici, and enjoyed the privilege of guarding 
the Emperor's person. Most of the legions of the 
line were known as the Comitatenses. These were 
employed in the interior garrisons of the Empire, 
and Zosimus — whether justly or not, it is impossible 
to say — accuses Constantine of having dangerously 
weakened the frontier garrisons and withdrawn too 
many troops into the interior. The control of the 
army, under the Emperor and his two ministers for 
war, was vested by the end of the fourth century in 
thirty-five commanders bearing the titles of dukes and 
counts, — the latter being the higher of the two. 
Three of these were stationed in Britain, six in Gaul, 
one each in Spain and Italy, four in Africa, three in 
Egypt, eight in Asia and Syria, and nine along the 
upper and lower reaches of the Danube. 

Such was the structure which rested upon the purse 
of the taxpayer and upon a system of finance in- 
herently vicious and wasteful. The main support of 
the treasury was still, as it had always been, the land 
tax, known as the capitatio terrena, the old tributum 
soli. It was the landed proprietor {possessor) who 
found the wherewithal to keep the Empire on its 
feet. Diocletian had reorganised the census, and, in 
the interests of the treasury, had caused a new survey 
and inventory to be made of practically every acre 
of land in every province. By an ingenious device 
he had established a system of taxable units {j'ugum 
or caput), each of which paid the round sum of 



33^ Constantine 

100,000 sesterces or 1000 aurei. The unit might be 
made up of all sorts of land — arable, pasture, or forest 
— the value of each being estimated on a regular 
scale. Thus five acres of vineyard constituted a unit 
and were held to be equivalent to twenty acres of the 
best arable land, forty acres of second-class land, and 
sixty of third-class. Nothing escaped: even the rough- 
est woodland or moorland was assessed at the rate of 
four hundred and fifty acres to the unit. The Em- 
peror and his finance ministers estimated every year 
how much was required for the current expenses of 
the Empire. When the amount was fixed, they sent 
word throughout the provinces, and the various 
municipal curiae, or town senates, knew what their 
share would be, for each town and district was as- 
sessed at so many thousand units, and each curia or 
senate was responsible for the money being raised. 
The curia was composed of a number of the richest 
landowners, who had to collect the tax from them- 
selves and their neighbours as best they could. If, 
therefore, any possessor became bankrupt, the others 
had to make up the shortage between them. Those 
who were solvent had to pay for the insolvent. All 
loopholes of evasion were carefully closed. Land- 
owners were not permitted to quit their district 
without special leave from the governor; they could 
not join the army or enter the civil service. When 
it was found that large numbers were becoming 
ordained in the Christian Church to escape their 
obHgations, an edict was issued forbidding it. Once 
a decurion always a decurion. 

The provincial country landowner and the small 



The Empire and Christianity 339 

farmer were almost taxed out of existence by this 
monstrous system. Every ten or fifteen years, it is 
true, a revision of the assessments took place, and 
there were certain officials, with the significant name 
of defensores, whose duty it was to prevent the pro- 
vincials from being fleeced too flagrantly. But a 
man might easily be reduced to beggary by a suc- 
cession of bad harvests before the year of revision 
came round, and the defensor s office was a sinecure 
except in the rare occasions when he knew that he 
would be backed at the headquarters of the diocese. 
During Constantine's reign, or at least during its 
closing years, there is overpowering evidence that 
the provincial governors were allowed to plunder at 
discretion. They imitated the reckless prodigahty 
of their sovereign, who, in 331, was compelled to is- 
sue an edict to restrain the peculation of his officers. 
There is a very striking phrase in Ammianus Marcel- 
linus who says that while Constantine started the 
practice of opening the greedy jaws of his favourites, 
his son, Constantius, fattened them up on the very 
marrow of the provinces.* Evidently, the inci- 
dence of this land tax inflicted great hardships and 
had the mischievous result of draining the province 
of capital, and of dragging down to ruin the inde- 
pendent cultivator of the land. Hence districts 
were constantly in arrears of payment, and the re- 
mission of outstanding debt to the treasury was 
usually the first step taken by an Emperor to court 
popularity with his subjects. 

* Proximorum faztces aper nit primus omnititn Consiantinus sed eos 
medtiUis provi7iciarwn saginavit Co7istantius (xvi., c. 8, 12). 



340 Constantine 

In short, the fiscal system of the Empire, so far as 
its most important item, the land tax, was concerned, 
seemed expressly designed to exhaust the wealth of 
the provinces. It helped to introduce a system of 
caste, which became more rigid and cramping as the 
years passed by and the necessities of the treasury 
became more urgent. It also powerfully contributed 
to crush out of existence the yeoman farmer, whose 
insolvency was followed, if not by slavery, at any 
rate by a serfdom which just as effectually robbed 
him of freedom of movement. The colonus having 

o 

lost the title-deeds of his own land became the hire- 
ling of another, paying in kind a fixed proportion of 
his stock and crops, and obliged to give personal serv- 
ice for so many days on that part of the estate 
where his master resided. The position of the poor 
colonus, in fact, became precisely similar to that of 
a slave who had not obtained full freedom but 
had reached the intermediate state of serfdom, in 
which he was permanently attached to a certain 
estate as, so to speak, part of the fixtures. He 
was said to be "ascribed to the land " [ascripticius], 
and he had no opportunity of bettering his social 
position or enabling his sons to better theirs, unless 
they were recruited for the legions. 

The land tax, of course, was not the only one, for 
the theory of Imperial finance was that everybody 
and everything should pay. Constantine did not 
spare his new aristocracy. Every member of the 
senatorial order paid a property tax known as " the 
senatorial purse " {follis senator ia), and another im- 
position bearing the name of auriim oblaticium, which 





SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIN DAZA. 




f/f 



/r' 



SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS I. 




^..' - .^ y' 




SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS II. 



Zi 

V 



c^ 




s^=i_ 



DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT 



The Empire and Christianity 341 

was none the more palatable because it was sup- 
posed to be a voluntary offering. Any senator, 
moreover, might be summoned to the capital to 
serve as praetor and provide a costly entertain- 
ment — a convenient weapon in the hands of 
autocracy to clip the wings of an obnoxious ex- 
official. Another ostensibly voluntary contribution 
to the Emperor was the auriim coronariiwt, or its 
equivalent of a thousand or two thousand pieces 
of gold, which each city of importance was obliged 
to offer to the sovereign on festival occasions, such 
as the celebration of five or ten complete years of 
rule. Every five years, also, there was a liistralis 
collatio to be paid by all shopkeepers and usurers, 
according to their means. This was usually spoken 
of as "the gold-silver" {chrysargyriini), and, like 
"the senatorial purse," is said by some authorities 
to have been the invention of Constantine himself. 
Zosimus, in a very bitter attack on the fiscal meas- 
ures of the Emperor, declares that even the courte- 
sans and the beggars were not exempt from the 
extortion of the treasury officials, and that when- 
ever the tribute had to be paid, nothing was heard 
but groaning and lamentation. The scourge was 
brought into play for the persuasion of reluctant tax- 
payers ; women were driven to sell their sons, and 
fathers their daughters. Then there were the capita- 
tio humana, a sort of poll-tax on all labourers ; the 
old five per cent, succession duty ; an elaborate sys- 
tem of octroi {portoria), and many other indirect 
taxes. We need not, perhaps, believe the very worst 
pictures of human misery drawn by the historians, 



342 Constantine 

for, in fairness to the Emperors, we must take some 
note of the roseate accounts of the ofificial rhetor- 
icians. Nazarius, for example, explicitly declares 
that Constantine had given the Empire "peace 
abroad, prosperity at home, abundant harvests, and 
cheap food." * Eusebius again and again conjures up 
a vision of prosperous and contented peoples, living 
not in fear of the tax-collector, but in the enjoyment 
of their sovereign's bounty. But we fear that the 
sombre view is nearer the truth than the radiant one, 
and that the subsequent financial ruin, which over- 
took the western even more than the eastern pro- 
vinces, was largely due to the oppressive and wasteful 
fiscal system introduced and developed by Dio- 
cletian and Constantine, and to the old standing 
defect of Roman administration, that the civil gov- 
ernor was also the judge, and thus administrative 
and judicial functions were combined in the same 
hands. 

Here, indeed, lay one of the strongest elements of 
disintegration in the reorganised Empire, but there 
were other powerful solvents at work, at which we 
may briefly glance. One was slavery, the evil re- 
sults of which had been steadily accumulating for 
centuries, and if these were mitigated to some ex- 
tent by the increasing scarcity of slaves, the degrada- 
tion of the poor freeman to the position of a colonus 
more than counterbalanced the resultant good. 
Population, so far from increasing, was going back, 
and, in order to fill the gaps, the authorities had re- 

* Omnia /oris placida, domi p7'ospera ; annoncB tibertas, frtuiutwi 
copia{P(2n. Vet., x., 38). 



The Empire and Christianity 343 

course to the dangerous expedient of inviting in the 
barbarian. The land was starving for want of capi- 
tal and labour, and the barbarian colonus was intro- 
duced, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, not, if 
the authorities are to be trusted, by tens, but by- 
hundreds of thousands, " to lighten the tribute by 
the fruits of his toil and to relieve the Roman citi- 
zens of military service." This was the principal 
and certainly the original reason why recourse was 
had to the barbarian ; the idea that the German or 
the Goth was less dangerous inside than outside the 
frontier, and would help to bear the brunt of the 
pressure from his kinsmen, came later. The result, 
however, of importing a strong Germanic and Gothic 
element into the Empire was one of active disinte- 
gration. Though they occupied but a humble posi- 
tion industrially, as tillers of the soil, they formed 
the best troops in the Imperial armies. The boast 
which Tacitus put into the mouth of a Gallic sol- 
dier in the first century, that the alien trooper was 
the backbone of the Roman army,* was now an un- 
doubted truth, and the spirit which these strangers 
brought with them was that of freedom, quite an- 
tagonistic to the absolutism of the Empire. 

There was yet another great solvent at work, — in 
its cumulative effects the greatest of them all, — the 
solvent of Christianity, dissociating, as it did, spirit- 
ual from temporal authority, and introducing the 
absolutely novel idea of a divine law that in every 
particular took precedence of mundane law. The 
growth of the power of the Church, as a body en- 

* Nihil in exercitibus validwn nisi externum. 



344 Constantine 

tirely distinct from the State and claiming a superior 
moral sanction, was a new force introduced into the 
Roman Empire, which, beyond question, weakened 
its powers of resistance to outside enemies, inasmuch 
as it caused internal dissensions and divisions. The 
furious hatreds between Christianity and paganism 
which lasted in the West down to the fall of Rome, 
and the equally furious hatreds within the Church 
which continued both in East and West for long 
centuries, can only be considered a source of serious 
weakness. No one disputes that the desperate and 
murderous struggle between Catholic and Huguenot 
retarded the development of France and weakened 
her in the face of the enemy, and it stands to reason 
that a nation which is torn by intestinal quarrel can- 
not present an effective front to foreign aggression. 
It wastes against members of its own household part 
of the energy which should be infused into the blows 
which it delivers at its foe. 

Christianity has always tended to break down dis- 
tinctions and prejudices of race. It has never done 
so wholly and never will, but the tendency is for 
ever at work, and, as such, in the days of the Em- 
pire, it was opposed both to the Roman and to the 
Greek spirit. For though there had already sprung 
up a feeling of cosmopolitanism within the Empire, 
it cannot be said to have extended to those without 
the Empire, who were still barbarians in the eyes 
not only of Greek or Roman, but of the Romanised 
Celt and Iberian, whose civilisation was no longer a 
thin veneer. When we say that Christianity was 
a disintegrating element in this respect, the term is 



The Empire and Christianity 345 

by no means wholly one of reproach. For it also 
implies that Christianity assisted the partial fusion 
which took place when at length the frontier barriers 
gave way and the West was rushed by the Germanic 
races. These races were themselves Christianised to 
a certain extent. They, too, worshipped the Cross 
and the Christ, and this circumstance alone must, to 
a very considerable degree, have mitigated for the 
Roman provinces the terrors and disasters of in- 
vasion. It is true that the invaders were for the 
most part Arians, — though it is a manifest absurdity 
to suppose that the free Germans from beyond the 
Rhine understood even the elements of a contro- 
versy so metaphysical and so purely Greek, — and, 
when Arian and Catholic fought, they tipped their 
barbs with poison. " I never yet," said Ammianus 
Marcellinus, " found wild beasts so savagely hostile 
to men, as most of the Christians are to one an- 
other." * But the fact remains that the German 
and Gothic conquerors, who settled where they had 
conquered, accepted the civilisation of the van- 
quished even though they modified it to their own 
needs ; they did not wipe it out and substitute 
their own, as did the Turk and the Moor when they 
appeared, later on, at the head of their devasta- 
ting hordes. If, therefore, Christianity tended to 
weaken, it also tended to assimilate, and we are not 
sure that the latter process was not fully as import- 
ant as the former. The Roman Empire, as a uni- 
versal power, had long been doomed ; Christianity, 

* Nullas infestas hominibus bestias ut sunt sibi ferales ple7-ique 
Christianoruni expertus (xxii., 5), 



34^ Constantine 

in this respect, simply accelerated its pace down the 
slippery slope. 

But other and more specific charges have been 
brought against Christianity. One is that it con- 
tributed largely to the depopulation of the Empire, 
which, from the point of view of the State, was an 
evil of the very greatest magnitude. The indict- 
ment cannot be refuted wholly. In the name of 
Christianity extravagant and pernicious doctrines 
were preached of which it would be difficult to speak 
with patience, did we not remember that violent 
disorders need violent remedies. No one can doubt 
the unutterable depravity and viciousness which 
were rampant and unashamed in the Roman Empire, 
especially in the East. If there was a public con- 
science at all, it was silent. Decent, clean-living 
people held fastidiously aloof and tolerated the 
existence of evils which they did nothing to combat. 
A strong protest was needed ; it was supplied by 
Christianity. But many of those who took upon 
themselves to denounce the sins of the age felt 
compelled to school themselves to a rigid asceticism 
which made few allowances not only for the weak- 
nesses but even for the natural instincts of human 
nature. The more fanatical among them grudgingly 
admitted that marriage was honourable, but rose to 
enthusiastic frenzy in the contemplation of virginity, 
which, if they dared not command, they could and 
did commend with all the eloquence of which they 
were capable. One cannot think without pity of 
all the self-torture and agonising which this new 
asceticism — new, at least, in this aggravated form — 



The Empire and Christianity 347 

brought upon hundreds and thousands of men and 
women, whose services the State needed and would 
have done well to possess, but who cut them- 
selves off from mundane affairs, and withdrew into 
solitudes, not to learn there how to help their fellow- 
men but consumed only with a selfish anxiety to 
escape from the wrath to come. They thought of 
nothing but the salvation of their own souls. It is 
impossible to see how these wild hermits, who 
peopled the Libyan deserts, were acceptable in the 
sight either of themselves, their fellows, or their 
God. Simon Stylites, starving sleepless on his pillar 
in the posture of prayer for weeks, remains for all 
time as a monument of grotesque futility. If char- 
ity regards him with pity, it can only regard with 
contempt those who imputed his insane endurance 
unto him for righteousness. No one can estimate 
the amount of unnecessary misery and sufferings 
caused by these extreme fanatics, who broke up 
homes without remorse, played on the fears and 
harrowed the minds of impressionable men and 
women, and debased the human soul in their frantic 
endeavour to fit it for the presence of its Maker. 
They stand in the same category as the gaunt 
skeletons who drag themselves on their knees from 
end to end of India in the hope of placating a mild 
but irresponsive god. Man's first duty may be 
towards God ; but not to the exclusion of his duty 
towards the State. 

It is not to be supposed, of course, that the 
majority of Christians were led to renounce the 
world and family life. The weaker brethren are 



348 Constantine 

always in a majority, and we do not doubt that 
most of the Christian priests were of Hke mind with 
their flock in taking a less heroic but far more 
common-sense view. It is also to be noted that 
the practical Roman temper speedily modified the 
extravagances of the eastern fanatics, and the as- 
ceticism of monks and nuns living in religious 
communities in the midst of their fellow-citizens, 
and working to heal their bodies as well as to save 
their souls, stands on a very different plane from 
the entirely self-centred eremitism associated with 
Egypt. By doing the work of good Samaritans 
the members of these communities acted the part 
of good citizens. Succeeding Emperors, whose 
Christianity was unimpeachable, looked with cold 
suspicion on the recluses of the deserts. Valens, 
for example, regarding their retirement as an evasion 
of their civic duties, published an edict ordering 
that they should be brought back ; Theodosius with 
cynical wisdom said that as they had deliberately 
chosen to dwell in the desert, he would take care that 
they stopped there. But it is easy to exaggerate 
the influence wielded by extreme men, whose doc- 
trines and professions only emerge from obscurity 
because of their extravagances. We must not, 
therefore, lay too much stress on the constant ex- 
hortations to celibacy and virginity which we find 
even in the writings of such men as Jerome and 
Ambrose. However zealously they plied the pitch- 
fork, human nature just as persistently came back, 
and the extraordinary outspokenness of Jerome, for 
example, in his letters to girls who had pledged 



^^////i 





DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 




DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF FAUSTA, 






DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CRISPUS. 





DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. AS C/€SAR. 



The Empire and Christianity 349 

themselves to virginity — an outspokenness based on 
the confident assumption that human, and more 
especially womanly, nature is weak and liable to 
err— shews that he was profoundly diffident of the 
success of his preaching. Nevertheless, when the 
counsel of perfection offered by the Church was 
the avoidance of marriage, it is a just charge against 
Christianity that it was in this respect anti-civic and 
anti-social. 

On the other hand, it is to be remembered that 
this avoidance of marriage and its responsibilities 
was no new thing in the Roman Empire. For cent- 
uries the State had been alarmed at the growth of 
an unwillingness, manifested especially in the higher 
orders of society, to undertake the duties of parent- 
age. Special bounties and immunities from taxation 
were offered to the fathers even of three children ; 
checks were placed upon divorce ; taxes were levied 
upon the obstinate bachelor and widower who clung 
to what he called the blessings of detached irrespon- 
sibility {prcemia orbitatis). These laws were all based 
on the theory that it is a man's civic duty to marry 
and give sons and daughters to the service of his 
country, and we find one of the Panegyrists declar- 
ing them to be the very foundation of the State, 
because they supply a nursery of youth and a con- 
stant flow of manly vigour to the Roman armies. * 
Yet so powerful were the attractions of a child- 
less life {prcEvalida orbitate — Tac, Ann., iii., 25) that 

* Vere dicuntar esse fundatnetita rei publico, quia setninariutti 
juventutis et quasi fonteju huniani roboris semper Romanis exerciti- 
btts ministrarimt {Pan Vei., vi., 2). 



350 Constantine 

the whole series of Julian laws on this subject had 
proved of little value, and Tacitus had declared that 
the remedy was worse than the disease. The motives 
of the luxurious voluptuary or the fastidious cynic 
were widely different from those of the Christian 
enthusiast for bodily purity, but by a curious irony 
they were directed towards the same object — the 
avoidance of matrimony. 

There was also brought against Christianity the 
charge that it discouraged military service and looked 
askance upon the profession of arms. The accusa- 
tion is true within certain limits. Christianity was 
and is a gospel of peace. Ideally, therefore, it is 
always antagonistic to war as a general principle, and 
there is always a considerable section of Christian 
opinion which is opposed, irrespective of the justice 
of the quarrel, to an appeal to arms. That section 
of Christian opinion was naturally at its strongest 
when the Roman Empire was pagan, and when it 
was practically impossible for a Christian to be a 
soldier without finding himself compelled to worship, 
at the altars of Rome, the Roman Emperor and the 
Roman gods. Oinnis militia est religio, Seneca had 
said most truly. There was a permanent altar fixed 
before the prcetoriuin of every camp. That being 
the case, one can understand that the army was re- 
garded with abhorrence by every Christian at a time 
when Christianity was a proscribed, or barely toler- 
ated, religion, and hence the violent denunciations of 
the army and military service to be found in some of 
the early Fathers. Hence too the number of Christian 
soldier martyrs, who had been converted while serv- 



The Empire and Christianity 351 

ing in the ranks. But the whole case was changed 
when the Roman Emperor was a Christian, and the 
army took its oath to a champion and no longer to 
an enemy of the Church. The bishops at once 
changed front — they could not help themselves — 
and at the Council of Aries we have seen the Gal- 
ilean bishops passing a canon anathematising any 
Christian who flung down his arms in time of peace. 
There were still extremists, as there are to-day, who 
denounced war with indiscriminate censure ; there 
must have been a much larger number who ac- 
quiesced in standing armies as a necessary evil, but 
themselves carefully kept aloof from service ; the 
majority, as to-day, would recognise that the security 
of a State rests ultimatel)- upon force, and would 
pray that their cause might be just whenever that 
force had to be put into operation. It is not Ter- 
tullian with his dangerous doctrine that politics 
have no interest for the Christian {nee ulla niagis res 
aliena guam publico), that the Christian has no coun- 
try but the world, and that Christ had bidden the 
nations disarm when he bade Peter put up his 
sword — it is not Tertullian who is the typical repre- 
sentative of the Church in its relations with the State 
and mundane affairs, but the broad-minded Augustine 
who, when nervous Christians appealed to him to 
say whether a Christian could serve God as a soldier, 
said that a man might do his duty to his God and 
his Emperor as well in a camp as elsewhere. 

God-fearing men could spend their days in the 
legions without peril to their souls, but the atmo- 
sphere of a Roman camp, full as it was of barbarians 



352 Constantine 

and semi-barbarians, naturally cannot have been 
congenial to the Christian religion. In spite of the 
Labarum, service in the army was discountenanced 
by the more zealous Christian bishops. Yet nothing 
could be more unfair than to charge Christianity 
with having introduced into the Roman world the 
reluctance to carry arms. That reluctance dated 
back to the latter days of the Republic. Christianity 
merely intensified it. 

Christianity, again, may be acquitted of having 
caused the decadence of literature and the arts. 
That decadence was of long standing. There had 
been a steady decline from the brilliant circle of 
Augustan poets and prose writers to the days of the 
Antonines. The third century had been utterly 
barren of great names. Literature had become 
imitation ; originality was lost. Society was literary 
in tone ; grammarians and rhetoricians flourished ; 
learning was not dead but active ; yet the results, 
so far as creative work was concerned, were miser- 
ably small. But if Christianity cannot be held re- 
sponsible for the poverty of imagination in the 
ranks of pagan society, it must be held responsi- 
ble for its own shortcomings. It often assumed an 
attitude of open hostility to the ancient literature, 
which was to be explained — and, so long as pagan- 
ism was a living force, might be justified — by the 
fact that the poetry of Rome was steeped in 
pagan associations. Men to whom Jupiter was a 
false deity or demon ; to whom the radiance of 
Apollo was hateful because it was a snare to the 
unwary ; to whom the purity of Diana, the cold 



The Empire and Christianity 353 

stateliness of Minerva, the beauty of Venus, and 
the bountifulness of Ceres, were all treacherous 
delusions and masks of sin, and all equally per- 
nicious to the soul, found in the very charm of 
style and the seductiveness of language of the old 
poetry another reason for keeping it out of the 
hands of their children and for themselves eschewing 
its dangerous delights. It is difficult to blame them. 
Protestants and Catholics even of the present day 
are studiously ignorant of the special literatures of 
the other, and if the Christian eschewed the class- 
ical poets, the educated pagan was grotesquely 
ignorant of the Christian's " Holy Books." 

But this point must not be pursued too far. 
Education itself was based on the ancient litera- 
ture of Greece and Rome — there was, indeed, no- 
thing else on which to base it — and in the ablest 
and most cultured of the Christian writers the 
influence of the classical authors is evident on every 
page. Jerome dreamt that an angel came to 
rebuke him for his love of the rounded periods of 
Cicero — Ciceronianus es, non Christianus. Augustine 
bewails the tears he had wasted on the moving 
story of the Fall of Troy, while his heart was in- 
sensible to the sufferings of the Son of God. 
Lines and half lines from Virgil, or the choice of a 
Virgilian epithet, betray the ineradicable influence 
of the Mantuan over Ambrose. Even the author 
of the De Mortibus Persecutorum, despite his fero- 
cious hatred of paganism, takes evident pleasure 
in the Ciceronian flavour of his maledictions. Do 

what he would, the cultured and educated Christian 
23 



354 Constantine 

could not escape from the spell of the poets of 
antiquity. There were, of course, narrow-minded 
fanatics in plenty who would cheerfully have burned 
the contents of every pagan library and have 
imagined that they were offering an acceptable 
sacrifice, and there were doubtless many more who, 
without vindictiveness towards the classics, were 
quite content with want of culture, deeming that 
ignorance was more becoming to Christian sim- 
plicity {Simplex sernio veritatis^) The tendencies of 
Christianity, as compared with paganism, were not 
towards what we call the humanities and a liberal 
education, for the dominant feeling was that there 
was only one book in the world which really mat- 
tered, and that was the Bible. There was, it is true, 
a slight literary renaissance starting at the close of 
the fourth century, with which we associate the 
names of Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Prudentius, 
and Claudian. This was mainly Christian. Ausonius 
strictly followed classical models ; the graceful yet 
vigorous hymns of Prudentius were an original and 
valuable contribution to literature ; Claudian stands 
neutral. " The last of the classics," as Mr. Mackail 
has well said,* " he is, at the same time, the earliest 
and one of the most distinguished of the classicists. 
It might seem a mere chance whether his poetry 
belonged to the fourth or to the sixteenth century." 
This literary renaissance, however, was a last flicker, 
and while we have to thank the Church for preserv- 
ing the Latin tongue, we owe it little thanks — 
compared with the paganism it had overthrown — for 



* History of Latin Literature, Bk. III., c. 7. 



The Empire and Christianity 355 

its services to culture and the humanities. In the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the classics had 
to be rediscovered and relearnt : the dead spirit of 
humanism had to be quickened to a new birth. 

Hard things have been said of Christianity and 
its influence upon the Roman Empire, harder per- 
haps than the facts warrant, though the bitterness 
of many of the critics has been directly provoked 
by the boundless assumptions of the Christian 
apologists. Looking back dispassionately upon the 
period with which we have been dealing, it is not 
difficult to see why the Church triumphed and 
why the nations acquiesced as readily as they did in 
the downfall of paganism. The reason is that the 
world had grown stale. It had outlived all its 
old ideals. It was sick of doubt, weary of bloodshed 
and strife, and nervously apprehensive, we can 
hardly question, of the cataclysm that was to burst 
upon the West and submerge it before another 
century was over. The philosophies were worn out. 
The gods themselves had grown grey. There was 
a general atmosphere of numbness and decrepitude. 
Men wanted consolation and hope. Christianity 
alone could supply it, and though Christianity itself 
had lost its early joyousness, freshness, and simplicity, 
it retained unimpaired its marvellous powers to con- 
sole. To a world tired of questioning and search it 
returned an answer for which it claimed the sanction 
of absolute Truth. The old spirit was not wholly 
dead. One may see it revive from time to time in 
the various heresies which split the Church. But it 
was ruthlessly suppressed, and humanity had to 



356 



Constantine 



purchase back its liberty of thought at a great price, 
ten or more centuries later, when the world realised 
that her ancient deliverer had herself become a 
tyrant. Nevertheless, few can seriously doubt 
that the triumph of the Christian Church was an 
unspeakable boon to mankind. The Roman Empire 
was doomed. Its downfall was certain and, on the 
whole, was even to be desired, so long as its civil- 
isation was not wholly wiped out and the genius of 
past generations was not wholly destroyed. 




INDEX 



Achillas, 190 

Acts of Pilate, The, anti- 
Christian pamphlet, 145, 
146 

Adrianople, battle of, 128, 
158 

-(Elianus, Proconsul of Africa, 
172, 173 

Alemanni defeated by Cris- 
pus, 124 

Alexander, a Phrygian, leads 
revolt in Africa, 76 

Alexander of Alexandria, 
holds Arius in high esteem, 
190; becomes involved in 
controversy with Arius, 
192 ff.; summons provin- 
cial synod, 195; denounces 
Arians, 201 ff.; attacks Eu- 
sebius of Nicomedia, 203; 
at Council of Nicaea, 214; 
influenced by Athanasius, 
215; prayer for the truth in 
regard to Arius, 274, 298; 
death, 286; refuses to ad- 
mit Arius to communion, 
298 

Amandus, Admiral, defeated 
by Crispus, 129 

Ambrose, St., exhortations to 
avoid marriage, 348; influ- 
enced by Virgil, 353 

Ammianus Marcellinus, 
quoted, 345 

Anastasia, half-sister to Con- 
stantine, 120 



Anastasis, Church of, dedi- 
cated, 311 
Ancyra, Council of, canons, 
15,3 

Annibalianus, son-in-law of 
Constantine, 309 

Antony, Saint, 147, 297 

Anulinus, proconsul of Africa, 
letter from Constantine to, 
167, 168 

Apollo, statue of, 270, 271 

Arcadius, rebuilds walls of 
Constantinople, 266 

Arch of Constantine, 91 

Arian controversy, 189 ff.; 
223 ff.;_ Canon Bright on, 
194; Gibbon on, 194 

Arianism, origin, 189 ff.; 
leading tenet, 193 ff., 198, 
223, 224; Canon Bright on, 
194, class to which it ap- 
pealed, 197 ff.; claims, 198 
ff. ; formal condemnation 
of, 229 

Arians, edicts against, 286; 
and Constantia, 289; para- 
mount at Imperial Court, 
290; plot against Athana- 
sius, 290 

"Ariomaniacs," 206 

Aristaces repeats Nicene 
Creed to his father, 285 

Arius, a power in Alexandria, 
190; character, 190, 191; 
preaching strange doctrine, 
191; starts controversy, 
192 ff.; denounces Alexan- 
der, 193; defends his doc- 



357 



358 



Index 



Arius (Continued) 

trine before synod, 195 ff.; 
excommunicated, 196, 231, 
236 ; finds champion in 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, 200 
ff.; synod of Bithynian 
bishops sympathises with, 
202 ff.; Thalia, 204 ff., 222, 
231 ; Constantine inter- 
venes between Alexander 
and, 207 ^7-/ S't Council of 
Nicsea, 214, 221, 231, 236; 
and Eusebian party, 229 
ff.; recalled from exile, 287, 
288 ; Constantine 's attack 
on, 288 ; pronounced a true 
Catholic by Council of 
Tyre, 295 ; returns to Alex- 
andria, 297; questioned as 
to his faith, by Constan- 
tine, 297 ; seeks admission 
to Church at Constanti- 
nople, 298, 299; death, 299, 
300 

Aries, Council of, 173-176; 
canons of, 177, 178, 351 

Armenia, recovered for Rome, 
6; Saint Gregory in, 27 

Arsenius, legend of withered 
hand, 293 

Athanasians and baptism of 
Constantine, 315 

Athanasius, Saint, on help 
given to persecuted Chris- 
tians, 28; First Discourse 
against the Arians, quoted, 
204, 205 ; influence on Alex- 
ander, 214, 215; leader of 
Trinitarians, 221 ; on Coun- 
cil of Nicsea, 222-224; i^i 
Arian controversy, 227; 
condemnation of, 231, 295; 
banished, 239, 296; elected 
bishop, 286; plot against, 
290; refuses to restore Arius 
to communion, 291; Con- 
stantine threatens, 291, 
292; campaign of calumny 



against, 292; refuses to 
attend trial at Caesarea, 
293 ; trial at Council of 
Tyre, 293-295; appeals to 
Constantine, 294, 295. 

Augustseum, the, 268, 269 

Augustine, Saint, Bishop of 
Hippo, on Botrus and Ce- 
lestius, 164; on Donatists, 
181, 182; on the Circum- 
celliones, 186; and the 
Donatist schism, 187; on 
Constantine , 3 2 9 ; on Christ- 
ian duty, 351; and ancient 
literature, 353 

Aurelian, Emperor, recovers 
Britain and Gaul, 3 ; mur- 
dered, 4; persecution of 
Christians, 13; influence 
on Galerius, 17; subdues 
Goths and Sarmatae, 123 

Ausonius, 354 



B 



Bassianus, 120 

Botrus, deacon, 164 

Bright, Canon, quoted, on 
Arianism, 194, 199; on 
philosophy and the Church, 
227 

Britain, Carausius ruler of, 6; 
Constantius ruler of, 8; 
Constantine ruler of, 51, 
56, 76, 82; Constantius re- 
covers, 52,53; Crispus rtiler 
of, 124 

Burnt Pillar, the, 270 

Bury, Professor, quoted, on 
Constantine, 328 

Byzantium, capitulation of, 
115, 128; naval battle at, 
129, 259; advantages of 
position, 259, 261; chosen 
by Constantine as site for 
a new city, 259, 260; re- 
nowned, 261; withstands 
Philip of Macedon, 262; 



Index 



359 



Byzantium {Continued) 

Polybius on, 262; prosper- 
ity, 262, 263 

Byzas, the Megarian, founder 
of Byzantium, 261 



Cascilianus, rebiikes Lucilla, 
163; elected bishop, 164; 
position challenged, 165, 
166, 170, 171, 173, 178; 
letter from Cons tan tine to, 
166, 167; summoned to 
Rome, 180, 181; Constan- 
tine's verdict on, 182 ; Don- 
atists refuse to obey, 184 

Cassarea, Cotmcil of, 292, 293 

Caius, 238 

Candidianus executed, 119 

Carausius, 6, 65 

Carinus, son of Carus, Em- 
pire divided between Nu- 
merian and, 4; death, 5 

Carnuntimi, conference at, 
63, 64 

Carthage sacked, 76 

Carthage, Council of, 188 

Carus devastates Persia, 4 

Catholic Party, 165 ff.; 297 

Celestius, deacon, 164 

"Champions of the Lord," 
the, 185 

Chrestus, Bishop of Syracuse, 

175. 

Christian martys, 15, 17 ff., 
28, 30 ff., 136 ff., 147, 157 

Christian schools of Antioch 
and Alexandria, 213 

Christianity, rapid spread, 
1 2 ; embraced by Constan- 
tine, 93 ff., 306, 312 ff.; ele- 
ment in disintegration of 
Empire, 343, 344, 346; 
element of assimilation, 
345 ; tendency to depopu- 
late Empire, 346-350; and 
asceticism, 346-348; and 
military service, 350-352; 



and literature and art, 
352-354; influence upon 
Roman Empire, 355, 356 

Christians, persecution of, 12 
ff., 27, 1^4 ff.; erect church 
at Nicomedia, 13 ; and Neo- 
Platonists, 19, 20 

Chrysopolis, battle of, 130, 

Church, the, condition in 
reign of Diocletian, 12-14, 
16; persecution of, 12 ff., 
134 ff.; and State, 13, 14, 
158. 234, 343, 344; schisms 
in, 153, 159^., 189; 211^7.; 
triumphof, 236, 355, 356; 
persecution ended, 285 ; 
and marriage, 349 

Cibalis, battle of, 121 

Circumcelliones, a religious 
sect, 185, 186 

Cirta, capital of Numidia, 
sacked, 76; renamed, 186 

Cirta, synod of, 161, 162 

Cistern of Philoxenos, 273 

Claudian, 354 

Claudius subdues Goths and 
Samiatse, 3, 123 

Coins, 239, 314, 318 

Colonus, the, condition, 340, 
342, 343 

Column of Constantine, 270 

Constans, son of Constantine, 
238, 309 

Constantia, wife of Licinius, 
pleads for his life 131; in- 
fluence, 200, 230, 239, 289 

Constantina, daughter of 
Constantine, 309 

Constantina, new name of 
Cirta, 186 

Constantine, Emperor, birth 
and parentage, 43, 44; 
birthplace, 44, 260; early 
life and characteristics, 45 ; 
ambitions, 46 ; escape from 
Galerius, 47 ; joins his 
father, 48; saluted as 



36o 



Index 



Constantine (Continued) 
Augustus by the troops, 49 ; 
declares himself Emperor, 
50 ; acknowledged as Caesar 
by Galerius, 50; Caesar of 
the West, 51 ; victory over 
the Franks, 53-55; atti- 
tude toward Galerius, 60; 
marriage, 61; alliance of 
Maximian and Maxen- 
tius with, 62; relations 
with Diocletian, 64; ac- 
knowledged as Augustus 
by Galerius, 66 ; recognises 
Maximian, 67; expedi- 
tion against the Franks, 
67, 68; quells Maxim- 
ian, 69; plots against, 70, 
7 1 ; his domain, 76 ; alliance 
of Licinius with, 79; war 
with Maxentius, 80 ff.; 
battle of Milvian Bridge, 
86, 87; triumphal proces- 
sion in Rome, 88 ; disbands 
Praetorians, 89 ; acts of con- 
ciliation, 90; games and 
festivals in honour of, 91; 
vision of the Cross and 
conversion, 92, 95 ff.; issues 
Edict of Milan, to"] ff.; and 
Licinius share Roman Em- 
pire, 120; war with Licin- 
ius, 1 20 ff.; defeats Licinius 
at Cibalis, 121; defeats Li- 
cinius at Mardia, 121; 
treaty with Licinius, 122; 
appoints Crispus as Caesar, 
122; his sons, 123; rupture 
with Licinius, 123 ff., 154; 
triumphs of, 124; cham- 
pion of the Church, 126, 
127; defeats Licinius at 
Adrianople, 128; victory at 
Byzantium, 129; general- 
ship of, 130; victory at 
Chrysopolis, 130; treat- 
ment of Licinius, 131, 132; 
signs edict of toleration, 



140; overthrow of Maxen- 
tius, 153; recalls exiled 
Christians, 158; and the 
Donatists, 159 ff.; African 
bishops appeal to, 159; 
presents money to Afri- 
can clergy, 166; letter to 
Caecilianus, 166; letter to 
Anulinus, 167 ; party of Ma- 
jorinus appeal to, 169; let- 
ter to Miltiades, 169; letter 
to ^lianus, 172-174; letter 
to Chrestus, 175; letter to 
Council of Aries, 178-180; 
summons Caecilianus to 
Rome, 180 ; letter to Dona- 
tist bishops, 180; letter 
to Probianus, 181; passes 
judgment on Caecilianus, 
182 ; change of policy, 183 ; 
ignores African Church, 
185 ; letter to the Catholics 
and his opinion of _the 
Donatists, 187; and Arian 
controversy, 189, 207-210, 
285-297; calls Council of 
Nicaea, 211; opens the 
Council, 217-219; and Ni- 
cene Creed, 230; celebrates 
his Vicennalia, 232, 233, 
239,322 ; farewell speech to 
Council of Nicaea, 233, 234: 
letter "To the Churches," 
235; family, 237; mother's 
influence upon, 238, 239; 
and Procession of the 
Knights, 240; edict to his 
subjects, 241 ; turns against 
Crispus, 242; murder of 
Crispus, Licinianus, and 
Fausta, 243-247; repent- 
ance, 247, 249; donation 
of, 248, 249; baptism, 248, 
249; builds churches, 249, 
251, 318, 319; campaigns 
against the Goths and Sar- 
matae, 252, 253; confession 
of faith, 254, 255; rela- 



Index 



361 



Constantine {Continued) 
tions with Persia, 254-256; 
founder of Constantinople, 
257 ff-'> edicts against the 
Arians, 286; character, 301 
ff.; passion for building, 
302, 303; division of the 
Empire, 307-311; educa- 
tion of his sons, 308 ; cele- 
brates Tricennalia, 311; 
fatal malady, 312, 313; 
death and burial, 256, 313, 
314; and religious parties, 
316; daily religious life, 
317; edict for observance 
of Lord's day, 319; prayer, 
319; policy toward old re- 
ligion, 320 ff.; edict giving 
religious freedom, 321; 
Pontifex Maximus, 322 ff.; 
and divination, 326; edict 
to abolish gladiatorial 
shows, 327; reforms, 330; 
attitude of subjects to, 33 1 ; 
organisation of Empire, 
331 ; fiscal system of, 339- 
342 

Constantine, son of the Em- 
peror Constantine, 296, 

309 

Constantinople, foundation 
of, 257 ff.; called "New 
Rome," 258; and Napo- 
leon, 259; part rebuilt, 
266; called. Septic ollis, 266; 
dedication, 267; plan and 
buildings, 269; forum, 269; 
palaces, 272; aqueducts, 
273; Hippodrome, 274, 
276; churches, 274-276 

Constantinus, son of Con- 
stantine, 309, 314 

Constantius, son of Constan- 
tine, persecution of Christ- 
ians, 134; birth, 238; 
appointed Csesar of Gaul, 
242 ; named consul, 243 

Constantius Chlorus, Cassar, 



5 ; goes to Britain, 6 ; do- 
main, 8 ; character, 16, 328 ; 
attitude toward Christ- 
ians, 16, 26; becomes em- 
peror, 40; ancestry, 44; 
marriage, 44; loyalty, 46; 
death, 49 

Consuls, 334 

"Council of the 318," the, 
212 

Crispus, son of Constantine, 
becomes Caesar, 122; vic- 
tory over Alemanni, 124, 
125; victory over Aman- 
dus, 129; heir to throne, 
237; victories, 237; and 
Fausta, 238; Constantine 
turns against, 242, 243; 
death, 243 

Curia, the, 338 

D 

Dalmatius, 310 

Damasus, Pope, 152 

Datianus, 29 

Decius, Emperor, persecu- 
tion of the Christians, 13 

Diocletian, Emperor, acces- 
sion, 5, 45; chooses col- 
leagues, 5 ; recovers Arme- 
nia for Rome 6; attitude 
toward Galerius, 7, 8; con- 
trolling spirit in the Em- 
pire, 8 ; locates his capital, 
8, 57; domain, 8; changes 
introduced by, 9; decen- 
tralisation in the pro- 
vinces, 10; prosperous 
reign, 1 1 ; persecution of 
the Christians, 12, 24/f.; 79, 
160; wife and daughters, 
1 3 ; neutrality toward the 
Church, 14 ; neutrality 
changed to antagonism, 
16. 19: influenced by Ga- 
lerius, 16, 25, 70, 74; edict 
against the Manichseans, 



362 



Index 



Diocletian (Continued) 

22, 23; and Galerius, 23; 
edicts against the Christ- 
ians, 26, 99, 134; motive 
for persecution, 38; abdi- 
cation, 39, 41, 43; chooses 
new Caesars, 40, 41, retires 
to private life, 40, 46; 
system of organisation, 
50, 65, 66, 74, 123, 242, 
3fi. 330, 33,^> 337; recog- 
nises Carausius, 5 1 ; invited 
to conference at Carnun- 
tum, 63, 64; relations with 
Constantine, 64; treatment 
of the Senate, 90 ; declines 
invitation to wedding of 
Constantino's sister, 106; 
wife and daughter, 118, 
119; wishes daughter to 
live with him, 119; cele- 
brates Vicennalia, 134, 
239, 240; proclaims am- 
nesty, 134 
Donatist schism, 159-188 
Donatists, 159-188 ; Constan- 
tine 's letter to, 180; raison 
d'etre, 183; increase in 
numbers, 185 
Donatus Magnus, leader of 
Donatist schism, 166, 173, 
184, 185 
Donatus of Casse Nigrse, 165 
Donatus of Mascula, 161 



E 



Easter, celebration, 231, 232 

Education, basis of, 353 ; and 
Christianity, 354 

Eusebian party, rise, 221; 
and Nicene Creed, 229, 230; 
in favour at Imperial 
Court, 290; confounded at 
Arius's death, 299 

Eusebius of Cffisarea, on Con- 
stantino's conversion, 93 
ff.; letter of Constantine to, 



158; friend of Arius, 196, 
214; teachings, 200; on 
Arian controversy, 206; 
supports middle party at 
Council of Nicasa, 221; 
creed of, 224, 225; signs 
Nicene Creed, 229, 230; on 
Constantino's baptism, 
death , and burial, 312,315; 
on Constantino's daily life, 
317; on Constantine 's re- 
ligious policy, 320 ff. 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, as 
historian, 25; History of 
the Church, 27, 71, 97; Life 
of Constantine, 27, 97; 
champion of Arius, 200 
ff., 214; calls a synod of 
Bithynian bishops, 202 ; 
attacked by Alexander, 
203 ; leader of middle party 
at Council of Nicsea, 221; 
character, 222 ; and the 
word "Homoousion," 224; 
signs Nicene Creed, 231; 
exiled, 231, 236; recalled, 
287, 288; succeeds Hosius 
as adviser to Constantine, 
290, 300, 316; attack on 
Athanasius, 291 ff.; at- 
tempt to restore Arius, 
291; baptises Constantine, 

Eustathius, Bishop of An- 
tioch, charges against, 291 

Eutropius, on Constantino's 
character, 306, 307 



Fausta, wife of Constantine, 
reveals conspiracy against 
Constantino, 7 1 ; sons, 123; 
attitude toward Crispus, 
238, 243, 244; death, 244, 
245, 247 

Felix, Bishop of Aptunga, 
164, 165, 173 



Index 



363 



Finance, system of, under 

Diocletian, 337-339, 342; 

under Constantine, 339- 

342 _ 
Firmilianus, Governor of 

Palestine, persecution of 

Christians, 136 
Franks, i, 5, 54, 253 

G 

Galerius, Emperor, becomes 
Csesar, 5, 39; entrusted 
with command of Parthia, 
6 ; victory over Parthians, 
7, 74; and Diocletian, 
8 ; domain, 8 ; capital at 
Sirmium, 8; character and 
influence, 16, 25; mother's 
influence, 16; persecution 
of Christians, 17-19, 23- 
25, 74; becomes Augustus, 
40 ; nominates new Caesars, 
41, 42; attitude toward 
Constantine, 42, 46, 60; 
sends Constantine to his 
father, 47, 48; acknow- 
ledges Constantine as Cse- 
sar, 50 ; extends the census, 
57; relations with Severus, 
59; invasion of Italy, 60- 
62, 76, 81; calls a confer- 
ence at Camuntum, 63 ; 
and Diocletian, 63 ; ap- 
points Licinius as Augus- 
tus, 64, 65 ; relations with 
Maximin Daza, 65, 66; 
recognises Maximin as Au- 
gustus, 66; death, 73, 74, 
138; estimate of the man, 
74, 75; nominates his suc- 
cessor, 75; edicts, 79, 99; 
aims carried out, 89 ; leaves 
wife to care of Maximin, 
118; edict of toleration, 
138-140 

Gallienus, and senatorial or- 
der, 9; issues edicts of tol- 
eration, i^ 



Gaul, devastated by Franks, 
I ; recovered by Aurelian, 
3 ; at Diocletian's acces- 
sion, 6; Constantius ruler 
of, 8, 52; Constantine in, 
51, 56, 76, 82; Crispus in, 
124, 242 

Gibbon on the Circumcel- 
liones, 186; on the Arian 
controversy, 194; on Con- 
stantinople, 263, 264; on 
Annibalianus, 309 

Goths, invade Roman Em- 
pire, 123, 124; war with 
Constantine, 252 

Gregory of Nyssa on Arian 
controversy, 206 

Gregory, Saint, in Armenia, 
27 

Gregory, the Illuminator of 
Armenia, and the Nicene 
Creed, 285 

Grosvenor, Mr., quoted on 
Constantinople, 273, 275, 
278, 281 

H 

Helena, mother of Constan- 
tine, ancestry, 43, 44; 
honoured by Constantine, 
239; and death of Crispus, 
245; pilgrimage, 249-251; 
legend of finding of the 
Cross, 250, 251; death, 252 
Heraclea, siege of, 115 
Heraclius, elected bishop, 

152 . 
Herculius, 8 
Hermogenes, 228 
Hierocles, author of The 

Friend of Truth, 20 
Holy Apostles, Church of, 

275 
Holy Trinity, Church of, 275 
Horses of Lysippus, 283 
Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, 

commissioned to mediate 



364 



Index 



Hosius (jOontinued) 

between Alexander and 
Alius, 207 ; advises Con- 
stantine, 21 1 ; at Council of 
Nicaea, 212, 221, 228; falls 
from favour, 290, 316 



Imperial Council, 333 
Italy, invasion of, 73 ff. 



Jerome, Saint, exhortations 
against marriage, 348, 349; 
dream of, 353 

Jovius, adopted name of Dio- 
cletian, 8 

Julian, Banquet of the CcBsars, 

77 
Julian, Emperor, on Constan- 
tine, 124, 303—305, on Con- 
stantinople, 268 
Julian laws on marriage, 350 
Justinian, statue of, 269; 
builds Church of St. Sophia, 
274, 276 



Lactantius, estimate of, as 
historian, 40-42, 47 

Land tax, 337 ff- 

Licinianus, becomes Caesar, 
122; attitude of Constan- 
tine toward, 125; life 
spared, 133; death, 243 

Licinius, Emperor, at confer- 
ence of Carnuntum, 63 ; be- 
comes Augustus, 64-66; 
successor of Galerius, 75; 
and Maximin Daza in east- 
ern half of Emjiire, 76 ; at- 
titude to Maximin Daza, 
79, 80; alliance with Con- 



stantine, 79; marriage, 79, 
106; and Edict of Milan, 
107 ff.; other edicts, 109; 
downfall, 115 ff.; at Milan, 
115; victory over Maxi- 
min Daza, 116, 1 17; angel's 
revelation to, 116; execu- 
tion of Maximin Daza's 
family, 118, 119; execu- 
tion of Candidianus, iig; 
and Constantine share Em- 
pire, 120; war with Con- 
stantine, 120; defeated at 
Cibalis, 121; defeated at 
Mardia, 121; treaty with 
Constantine, 122; appoints 
Licinianus as Caesar, 122; 
gives up important pro- 
vinces, 122; rupture with 
Constantine, 123, 125-127, 
154, 157; religious policy, 
126, 127; defeated at Adri- 
anople, 128; defeated at 
Chrysopolis, 130 ; pleads for 
his life, 131; death, 132; 
character, 132; edict of 
toleration, 138-140; de- 
feats Maximin, 153; anti- 
Christian campaign, 154, 
155,157; throws over Edict 
of Milan, 155; exile, 158 

Literature, anti-Christian, 
145; decadence of, 352; 
character of pagan, 352; 
basis of education, 353; 
renaissance of, 354 

Lucian of Antioch, famous 
teacher, 200, 201 

Lvicilla, censured by Church 
of Carthage, 162-164; in- 
trigues of, 188 

Ludi Cereales, 36 

Lycians, petition of, 142, 143 

M 

Mackail, Mr., History of Latin 
Literature, quoted, 354 



Index 



365 



Majorinus, elected bishop, 
165 ; death, 165 ; not recog- 
nised by the churches, 166 

Mamertinus, eulogy on Max- 
imian, 52 

Manichceanism, rise, 22, 23; 
chief characteristic, 22 

Marcellus, elected bishop, 
151 ; exile and death, 152 

Mardia, battle of, 121 

Maris of Chalcedon, and Ni- 
cene Creed, 230, 231; ex- 
iled, 231 

Marriage, Jerome exhorts 
against, 348, 349; and the 
State and Church, 349 

Martinianus, becomes Caesar, 
130; death, 133 

Maxentius, Emperor, son of 
Maximian, claims heritage 
of Caesar, 5 6 ; character 
56, 77-79; marriage, 57 
master of Rome, 57, 58 
resumes title of Augustus, 
59; and Maximian besiege 
Severus, 59, 60; and Max- 
imian in alliance with 
Constantine, 60; and Max- 
imian in possession of 
Italy, 62 ; rupture with 
Maximian, 62, 63, 67, 70; 
domain, 76; treatment of 
African cities, 76; loss cf 
popularity, 76; restc ."^s 
property to Christians, 79, 
152; attitude to other Au- 
gusti, 79; alliance with 
Maximin Daza, 80 ; war 
with Constantine, 80 ff.; 
overthrow, 82 ff., no, 154; 
Italy wrested from, 85; 
death, 87 ; head carried in 
triumphal procession, 88 ; 
seeks good-will of Christ- 
ians, 151; exiles bishops, 
152; libel against, 163 

Maximian, Emperor, be- 
comes Cfesar, 5 ; becomes 



Augustus , 5 ; ruler of the 
West, 6, 8; fights the 
Moors, 6 ; recognises Carau- 
sius, 6, 51; styles himself 
Herculius, 8 ; character, 14, 
1 5 ; persecution of the 
Christians, 15-19, 160; 
celebrates the Ludi Cere- 
ales, 36; abdication, 40, 56; 
restores peace to Gaul, 51 ; 
eulogised by Mamertinus, 
5 2 ; locates his Court at 
Milan, 57; restmies title of 
Augustus, 59; victory over 
Severus, 59, 60; and Max- 
entius in alliance with Con- 
stantine, 60, 62 ; gives his 
daughter in marriage to 
Constantine, 61, 62; and 
Maxentius in possession of 
Italy, 62; rupture with 
Maxentius, 62, 63, 67, 70; 
expelled from Italy, 63 ; at 
conference of Carnuntum, 
63, 65 ; ex- Augustus, 65, 66 ; 
returns to Gaul, 67 ; plots 
against Constantine, 68, 69 ; 
stripped of his titles, 69 ; fur- 
ther plots against Constan- 
tine, 70, 71; death, 71, 72 
Maximin Daza, Emperor, be- 
comes Csesar, 40, 57 ; nomi- 
nated by Galerius, 41, 42; 
domain, 65, 75; claims 
title of Augustus, 66; 
claims title of senior Au- 
gustus, 75; and Licinius 
in eastern half of Empire, 
76; alliance with Maxen- 
tius, 79, 80, 148; in op- 
position to Licinius, 80, 
107; invades territory of 
Licinius, 115, 148; de- 
feated, 116, 117, 148, 153; 
flight 117, 118, 148; com- 
mits suicide, 118, 151 ; pro- 
vince falls into hands of 
Licinius, 118; family slain, 



366 



Index 



Maximin Daza (Continued) 
1 1 8 ; treatment of Prisca 
and Valeria, ii8, 119; 
persecution of Christians, 

135-137. 141-143. 145- 
147; act of toleration, 137, 
1 49-1 51; restores privi- 
leges to Christians, 140, 
149, 150; character, 146, 
147; eminent victims of, 
147; war with Tiridates, 
148; final edict, 149, 150 
Maximus, Governor of Cilicia, 

30 

Maximus, Governor of Moesia, 
17, 18 

Meletian schismatics checked, 
297_ 

Meletians recognised as or- 
thodox, 295 

Meletius, Bishop of Lyco- 
polis, condemned by Egyp- 
tian bishops, 190 

Mensurius, Bishop of Car- 
thage and Primate of 
Africa, trick to save Holy 
Books, 160; summoned to 
Rome, 164; death, 164 

Milan, conference at, 106 

Milan, Edict of, issued, 107, 
115; important clauses, 
107, 108; principles and 
motives of, 109, no ff.; 
hailed by the Christians, 
153; thrown over by Li- 
cinius, 155 

Military forces, organisation 

of, 336, 337 
Miltiades elected bishop, 152 
Milvian Bridge, battle of, 86, 

87, 92 
Minervina, first wife of Con- 

stantine, son of, 122, 123 
Moesia, given over to Con- 

stantine, 122; invaded by 

Goths and Sarmatae, 123 
Montanism, in Northern 

Africa, 159 



N 



Naissus, birthplace of Con- 
stantine, 44, 260 

Narses sues for peace, 7 

Neo-Platonists, influence, 19, 
197 ; discussions of interest 
to, 216 

"New Rome," 259 

Newman, Cardinal, quoted, 
on death of Arius, 300 

Nicaea, Canons of, 231, 232 

Nicsea, Council of, called by 
Constantine, 211; mem- 
bers, 212-214; language, 
213; great interest aroused 
in, 215; Constantine opens 
the Council, 217-220; 
splits up into parties, 221 
ff.; proceedings, 221 ff.; 
adopts Nicene Creed, 228; 
excommunicates Arius, 
231; decision in regard to 
Easter, 231; draws up 
Canons of Nicaea, 231 ; fare- 
well address by Constan- 
tine, 233; dismissed, 234 

Nicene Creed adopted, 228 

Nicomedia, capital of Dio- 
cletian, 8, 39, 258, 260; 
Christian church erected 
at, 13 ; church at, razed, 24 

Novatianism in Northern 
Africa, 159 

Numerian, son of Carus, Em- 
pire divided between Cari- 
nus and, 4; death, 5 



Pagan clergy, 146 
Pamphylians, petition of, 

142, 143 

Pannonia, given over to Con- 
stantine, 122; invaded by 
Goths and Sarmatas, 123 

Paphnutius, 232, 233 



Index 



367 



Parthia, war with Rome, 7 

Parthians, 2 

"Passion of the Saints," 35, 

Paulinus of Nola, 354 

Paulinus of Tyre, treatment 
of Alius, 196; letter from 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
202 

Persia, relations with Con- 
stantine, 254-256 

Philostorgius, on Fausta, 244 

Philoxenos, 273 

Polybius, quoted, on Byzan- 
tium, 262 

Porphyry, Neo - Platonist 
philosopher, 19 

Porphyry Pillar, the, 270 

Praetorian pragfects, 331, 332 

Praetorians, mutiny at Rome, 
57; camps abolished, 58; 
rule Rome, 77, 78; dis- 
banded, 89 

Prastors, 334 

Prisca, wife of Diocletian, a 
Christian, 13; exiled, 118, 
119; death, 120, 132 

Probus, 4, 17 

Prudentius, 354 

Purpurius, Bishop of Limata, 
161 

R 

Roman Empire, threatened 
fall in third century, i ff.; 
turn of fortune, 3 ; under 
Diocletian, 5 ff.; 330; di- 
vided into twelve dioceses, 
10, 331; prosperity, 11; 
population, 12; shared by 
Constantine and Licinius, 
120; invaded by Goths and 
Sarmatae, 123, 124; united, 
133; peace, 252; war with 
Goths and Sarmats, 252; 
reorganisation under Con- 
stantine, 330 ff.; disinte- 
gration, 342 ff. 



Rome, 57, 258 
Rome, Council of, 176 
Ruricius Pompeianus, holds 
Verona, 83 ; killed, 85 

S 

Sabinus, praefect, 140, 143 

St. Irene, Church of, de- 
scription of, 274, 275 

St. Sophia, Church of, 274 

St. Stephen, Church of, 278 

Sapor, king of Persia, rela- 
tions with Constantine, 
254-256 

Sarmatas, invade Roman Em- 
pire, 123; turn toConstan-, 
tine for help, 253 

Saturninus, speech of, 3 

Secundus, Bishop of Tigisis, 
president of synod at Cirta, 
161, 162, 165 

Secundus of Ptolemais, Bish- 
op, friend of Arius, 196 

Senate, 335, 336 

Seneca, quoted, 350 

Senecio, 120 

Severus, Emperor, becomes 
Caesar, 40, 56, 57; nomi- 
nated by Galerius, 41, 59; 
domain, 56 ; besieges Rome, 
59; besieged by Maximian 
and Maxentius, 59-60; is 
given choice of death, 72 

Simon Stylites, 347 

Sirmium, capital of Galerius, 
8 

Slavery, 342 

Socrates, quoted, 216, 220, 
287, 288, 298, 299 

Sopater, pagan philosopher, 
in favour with Constan- 
tine, 324 

Sotades of Crete, pagan poet, 
204 

Sozomen, quoted, 216 

Stanley, Dean, History of the 
Eastern Church, quoted, 
226 



i68 



Index 



Sylvan us, Bishop, 162 
Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, 
sends representatives to 
Council of Aries, 175; letter 
to, from Council of Aries, 
176,177; absent from Coun- 
cil of Nicsea, 212, 213; 
baptises Constantine, 248; 
legends concerning Con- 
stantine and, 248, 249 



Tacitus, rule of, 4; on child- 
less life, 349 

Taxation, 337-342 

Temporal Power, legend of 
origin, 248, 249 

Terminalia, Festival of, 24 

Tertullian and his doctrine, 

351 
Theban Legion, legend of its 

massacre, 14, 15 

Theodora, wife of Constan- 
tius Chlorus, 44 

Theodoretus, rival of Arius, 
190; on the Council of 
Nicaea, 220, 223 

Theodosius II., rebuilds walls 
of Constantinople, 266; at- 
titude toward recluses, 348 

Theodotus of Ancyra, 30 

Theognis of Nicsea, and Ni- 
cene Creed, 230, 231; ex- 
iled, 231 ; recalled, 287, 288 

Theonas, Bishop of Marmor- 
ica, friend of Arius, 196 

Theotecnus, Governor of An- 
tioch, 142; invented new 
deity, 145 



Thessalonica, naval harbour, 

127 
Thirty Tyrants, period of, 2 
Tiridates, ruler of Armenia, 6 
Tithe lands, i 
Trinitarians vs. Arians, 221, 

223—226 
Twelfth Legion, soldiers of, 

martyrs, 156 
Tyre, Council of, trial of 

Athanasius, 293-295 

U 

Urbanus, Governor of Pales- 
tine, 136 

V 

Valens, appointed Caesar, 
122; recalls recluses from 
the desert, 348 

Valentinianus, the Curator, 
161 

Valeria, daughter of Diocle- 
tian, a Christian, 13 ; widow 
of Galerius, 118; Maximin 
proposes marriage to, 118; 
exiled, 119 

Valerian, Emperor, taken 
prisoner, 2 ; persecution of 
the Christians, 13 

Victor of Russicas, 161 



Zosimus on Constantine 's 
character, 303 



Heroes of the Nations. 



A Series of biographical studies of the Hves and 
work of a number of representative historical char- 
acters about whom have gathered the great traditions 
of the Nations to which they belonged, and who have 
been accepted, in many instances, as types of the 
several National ideals. With the life of each 
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HEROES OF THE NATIONS. 



NELSON. By W. Clark Russell. 
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C. 

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THEODORIC THE GOTH. By 

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Fox-Bourne. 
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Morris. 
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phant. 
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Morris. 
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Conant Church. 



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By H. 
Lane- 
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By 



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MOLTKE. By Spencer Wilkinson. 
JUDAS MACCABEUS. By Israel 

Abrahams. 
SOBIESKI. By F. A. Pollard. 
ALFRED THE TRUTHTELLER. 

By Frederick Perry. 
FREDERICK II. By A. L. 

Smith. 
MARLBOROUGH. By C. W. C. 

Oman. 



RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED 

By T. A. Archer. 
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By 

Ruth Putnam. 
CHARLES THE BOLD. By 

Ruth Putnam. 
GREGORY VII. By F. Urquhart. 
MAHOMET. ByD. S. Margoliouth. 



New York— G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers— London 



The Story of the Nations. 



In the story form the current of each National life 
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the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, 
will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully 
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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS. 



GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 
ROME. Arthur Gilman. 
THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hos- 
mer. 

CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. 
SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan 

Hale. 
HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vdmbdry. 
CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. 

Church. 
THE SARACENS. Arthur Gil- 
man. 
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne 

Jewett. 
PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 
ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. 

Rawlinson. 
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J. P. Mahaffy. 
ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 
IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PER- 
SIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gus- 

tave Masson. 
HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold 

Rogers. 
MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
PHCENICIA. George Rawlinson. 
THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen 

Zimmern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred 

J. Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. 

Stanley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. 

D. Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and 

Mrs. A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. 

W. C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCA]^_ REPUBLICS 

Bella 



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Fiske. 
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Justin McCarthy, M.P. Two 

vols. 
AUSTRIA. Sidney Whitman. 
CHINA. Robt. K. Douglass. 
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin 

A. S. Hume. 
MODERN ITALY. Pietro Orsi. 
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

Helen A. Smith. Two vols. 
WALES AND CORNWALL. Owen 

M. Edwards. Net $1.35- 
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THE PAPAL MONARCHY. Wm. 

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PARLIAMENTARY ENGLAND. 

Edward Jenks. 
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. Mary 

Bateson. 
THE UNITED STATES. Edward 

Earle Sparks. Two vols. 



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